


Salt

by castielsdemons



Series: Necessary Elements [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (pls don't hate me), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, I guess you could call it... going out with a bang, I love it when characters have the sex near the end of the story, Incomplete Series, Jealousy, Like really really slow, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pining, Series is WIP, Slow Build, Soul Bond, Spells & Enchantments, familiar bucky, like extremely slow, witch steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 57,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielsdemons/pseuds/castielsdemons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes, a familiar, has spent a great deal of his life running from witches. Because of his past, Bucky believes that working alone is the best path for him, and even if he found his True Bond—the perfect match between witch and familiar—he knows that he wouldn’t work with any witch. That’s until Steve Rogers crashes into his life and fucks up everything.</p><p>Rogers is a private, mysterious man that happens to be Bucky’s True Bond. Steve has few friends, lives alone in Brooklyn, and leaves for several weeks at a time without a word. Everything about Steve tells Bucky that he shouldn’t trust him.</p><p>But he does anyway.</p><p>(1/3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [白鹽](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9310172) by [abbabccd05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbabccd05/pseuds/abbabccd05)



> I saw that there were NO witch/familiar AUs for this pairing, so I decided to fix that. I've spent a long time thinking about this plot, and I've been so excited to finally write this.
> 
> EDIT AUG 13 2016: Be aware that while this work is complete, the story is not over!! This is a THREE-PART SERIES and every part works towards the actual story. Reading this will only give you 1/3 of the story. If you want to read this in its entirety, then wait until the stats on the series read "Complete: Yes".

> **NOW**

The cell doesn’t have bars. It’s a single room with a window and a heavy metal door that Bucky doesn’t even have a chance of breaking through. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor are all white. The cot, toilet, and door are all a grayish, metallic color.

It could be like isolation—he is alone, after all. But he can see people through the window, bustling around. Hydra agents. He’s been here long enough that he doesn’t feel the exposure and vulnerability that the window gives. His every move is watched, written down and meticulously recorded. Every breath he takes, every toss in his sleep, every time he takes a piss.

The worst thing about it is that the only thing he can do to pass the time is sleep, and think. Think about where Steve is at. Think about how he might get out of here. Think about perhaps sticking his head in the toilet so he could drown himself.

He doesn’t, though. He can’t imagine what kind of pain Steve would go through— _literally_ go through—if Bucky did that.

So he falls asleep dreaming of salt.


	2. Resonance

> **182 DAYS BEFORE**

The bar is poorly lit.

He thinks, at first, it’s to hide the faces of the customers inside. To add anonymity to the atmosphere. He likes that—what others might consider a curious mystery, Bucky considers a veil to hide his identity.

Then, he thinks, as glances around, perhaps it’s because they can’t afford to keep the lights bright. Or they’re too lazy to change the bulbs that have finally puttered out. The place is a dive if he’s ever seen one—the walls are unpainted brick and the tables are older than he is, with scratches and words carved into them, and dusty lampshades around every bulb, broken or otherwise.

But, when the smell hits him, he decides it’s to cover up the sketchy stains on the—well, _everywhere._

He decides he likes this place despite the low lighting, and the smells, and the stains. The low lighting makes sure that people won’t be able to recognize him. Even if there was a chance that they would, the bar’s patrons are too drunk to notice shit. It’s late, past curfew for familiars, but he should be fine—it’s not like humans can tell familiars from themselves anyway.

He saunters up to the bar and sits at a stool, waving at the bartender to get her attention. She’s pretty—short black hair in a bob, tattoos running up her arms, clear blue eyes and a pixie-like demeanor. Bucky takes to her immediately, smirking as she smiles at him and makes her way over, wiping her hands off on a dish towel.

“What can I get for you?” she asks with a smile.

Bucky leans forward, still smirking at her, eyes glittering. “Just your number, sweetheart,” he flirts.

She looks down with a laugh and shakes her head. “Nice try, hun. I have a boyfriend.”

Bucky smiles. “Worth a shot, right?” He shrugs. “In that case—could I get a scotch?”

“On the rocks?” she asks as she pulls a bottle down from the shelf, and grabbing a glass to pour it in. The door opens then, a new customer entering the building, and the bartender waves at the new patron.

“Neat,” Bucky answers, resisting the urge to look behind him. He’s in a public place—he has to act natural, not paranoid. Like he actually is.

“Gotcha,” she says.

Bucky hears footsteps behind him. “Is this seat taken?” a voice asks.

“Nope, ‘s all yours—” Bucky starts, turning around to face the speaker. But when their eyes meet, everything else falls away.

He’s never seen the man in front of him. No, he’d remember this guy’s face—clean-shaven, blond hair, blue eyes clear and fucking breathtaking, a strong jaw and sharp cheekbones—yeah, he’d remember this guy’s face. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that he’s hearing a ringing in his head, like church bells echoing off the walls of his skull. They toll louder and louder and Bucky thinks he’s going to fucking vibrate out of his goddamn skin— _that’s_ the fucking problem.

Because that— _that_ is resonance, but it isn’t normal resonance. It’s not the everyday resonance that familiars and witches feel with each other all the time—when they see each other on the street, whatever.  It’s _the_ Resonance— the capital R, Resonance—that only True Bonds feel with each other.

True Bond. The perfect match between witch and familiar. The man in front of him—he’s the perfect witch to Bucky’s familiar. He’s the missing piece. Their magic would sync perfectly together. They could be incredibly powerful together.

And Bucky’s anything but excited. In fact, he’s panicking like a son of a bitch.

In his peripheral vision, he sees the bartender set his drink on the counter.

“It… it’s you,” the man whispers. His eyes are full of wonder, and—strangely enough—relief. “I didn’t think I was ever going to find you.”

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake,_ Bucky thinks to himself. His fist clenches and unclenches where it rests on the bar.

“Look, buddy,” Bucky starts, and then stops completely. “Why don’t you sit down?” he says instead.

The guy’s eyebrows pull together, seeming to not understand why Bucky’s not as overjoyed as he is. He takes the stool next to Bucky, sitting down with a sigh. He folds his hands on the counter.

“What’s your name?” the man asks, trying for a conversation as he takes the stool next to him.

Bucky exhales sharply through his nose. “James,” he answers.

The man nods, offering a hand. “Steve Rogers.”

Bucky takes his hand and shakes it once, sizing Rogers up. He’s got a firm grip. The guy seems so goddamn innocent—he’s built like a fucking tank, with broad shoulders and muscles everywhere, but his eyes betray him—he’s not _stupid,_ just innocent, naïve.

“Are we,” Rogers starts, then stops. “Are we seriously not going to talk about this?”

Bucky glares at him. “Not here, we’re not.”

Rogers raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Bucky presses his lips together in a line. “You’re not from around here, are you?” He fights the urge to snap at this guy. He’s like a child with a million and one questions.

“No,” Steve answers. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Bucky looks around. “Look,” Bucky says. “I don’t have time to explain this shit to you. But we’re in a bad part of town, okay? Legally, we’re not supposed to be here at all. So just—hold your horses, and we’ll talk after this, okay? But you gotta order a drink. You gotta act normal.”

“ _Normal_?” Steve looks offended at the very idea of it.

“Yeah, buddy, _normal_.” Bucky presses his lips together in a tight line. “There are laws out here. People aren’t so easy to accept familiars like me and witches like you as they are in the North, m’kay?”

Steve looks at the drink the bartender has set on the counter for him. “I knew it was bad for familiars, but I didn’t know it was _that_ bad.”

The bartender freezes in Bucky’s peripheral vision, and that’s when Bucky knows he fucked up. He should have looked at his surroundings better—now the bartender knows, and they’re gonna get fucking kicked out of the bar. She looks at them with hard eyes, leans in close on the counter.

“You’re a familiar?” the bartender whispers furiously.

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat and nods. Of course. Just when he was getting to like this place, he had to get thrown out. Of fucking course.

“And _you’re_ a witch?” she adds, looking at Rogers.

Steve’s mouth presses into a thin line and he nods.

She looks worriedly between the two of them and sighs. “You guys gotta go. I’m sorry—really. But you gotta leave. Drinks are on the house, just—leave. I can’t afford another fine.”

“Fine?” Steve asks, eyebrows pulling together.

“You’re really not from around here, huh?” Bucky says.

The bartender shakes her head. “Familiars and witches in here after curfew means I get a fine. Really, I don’t want to kick you out. My boyfriend’s a familiar. I know how shitty you guys get it. But just the other day two familiars walked in here after curfew—the cops are already breathing down my neck.”

There are two men down at the end of the bar, sipping their drinks and remaining quiet. Bucky knows that they were talking animatedly a few seconds ago—he fears that they might have overheard their conversation with the bartender.

“You can stay until you’ve finished your drinks,” she says, “but you can’t buy anymore and you gotta leave right after.” She presses her lips in a firm line. “On the house, okay? I’m sorry.”

She turns and leaves to go tend to the other customers. Steve scoffs and says, “Yeah, like that’s gonna fix anything.” He looks over at Bucky. “Hey, you okay?”

Bucky gnaws at his lip. “The guys at the end of the bar. I think they might have heard our conversation.”

Steve doesn’t look over, thank God. “Yeah? You think they’re gonna try something?”

“Maybe.” He sighs. “Just—finish your drink and we’ll go. Maybe they’ll just forget it.”

Steve looks like he wants to say something, but instead just takes a gulp of his beer. Bucky takes a small sip of his whiskey.

Soon enough, though, Bucky is staring at the bottom of his glass, and Steve is trying to make conversation with the bartender to distract himself from drinking. She’s not taking the bait; just gives him a pointed look. Finally, Steve just downs it all in one go and Bucky can’t seem to find any reason to stick behind.

Bucky’s mind is racing. If the two men know that Bucky is a familiar, it’s pretty obvious that he shouldn’t stay in this town any longer. Word travels fast in a little place like this. He’ll never find work. People will treat him like shit. Besides, he already told his landlord that he’s a human. If he found out Bucky was lying, he’d be out on his ass in a second.

The two of them get up from their stools and exit the bar. Bucky stands with his hands in his pocket, not sure what the fuck he’s supposed to do.

“What now?” Bucky asks.

“Wait,” Steve murmurs, looking in the window of the building. The two men that were staring at Bucky are starting to get up from their seats. The bartender takes the money for their tab. She looks nervous as hell.

Through the glass, she and Bucky make eye contact. Then she hastily looks away.

The two men exit the bar, just as Bucky feared. One is short and red-faced with a ginger mustache. The other is tall and thin with black hair that accentuates his unnaturally pale face and dark eyes.

They start walking towards Bucky in what he assumes is supposed to be a menacing way, but they don’t quite pull it off considering that they look like idiots.

“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” Steve asks, smooth as he’s ever been. His hands are in his pocket, but Bucky can tell that he’s poised to fight despite looking relaxed.

“You two shouldn’t be out past curfew,” the short man says. “Bad things happen to cunning-folk at night.”

Cunning-folk being an old term for magical beings. Bucky’s mouth twists at the term.

“I don’t see a problem,” Steve says, shrugging his shoulders. “We aren’t hurting anyone, are we?”

“Just take your mutt home and stay there,” the tall man chips in.

Bucky feels the word like a kick to the chest, but he ignores it in favor of watching Steve’s face suddenly go from normal to an angry red color.

“What did you just call him?” Steve asks, raising his eyebrows and stepping carefully closer.

“You heard me,” he says.

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck_ is on a repeat in Bucky’s head, the only thought he’s capable of comprehending right now. Steve isn’t making this situation any better.

“Steve,” he whispers urgently. “Leave it.”

One of the men, the taller one, laughs in amusement at Bucky’s statement. “So the bitch is giving orders to the master now? That’s new.”

Bucky grits his teeth and clenches his fists together, but stays rooted to the spot. Steve, however, is advancing to the tall man quickly, grabbing the front of his shirt roughly.

The man scrambles to get away from Steve, but he’s just flat-out stronger and bigger. The shorter man tries to go to his friend’s aid, but Steve pushes him backwards with enough force to knock him on his ass. The tall man yelps as Steve leans in close, his voice dangerous and threatening when he speaks.

“You listen,” Steve growls. “You’re going to apologize to him, okay? You got that?”

Bucky’s nostrils flare. “I don’t need you protecting my honor, Steve,” he growls. “I’m not a damsel in distress.”

Steve doesn’t even acknowledge him, just keeps staring at the poor bastard still in his grip.

“Yeah, yeah—” the man stutters. “Of course, buddy, whatever you want.”

“Repeat after me,” Steve says. “ _I’m sorry, James, I was an ignorant asshole._ ”

“I’m s-sorry, James,” the man repeats in a quavering voice, “I was an i-ignorant asshole.”

“Good,” Steve says, releasing his grip on the man’s shirt. “Now get the hell out of here.”

The two men start walking away, hands held up in surrender. Steve and Bucky watch them until they turn the corner, and then Steve pats Bucky’s arm to get his attention.

“Come on,” Steve says, starting to walk away from the bar at a quick pace. Bucky jogs to catch up to him.

“What—?” he starts.

“They’re gonna call the police, I can tell,” Steve informs him. In a split second, Steve has changed. He’s no longer the fumbling, naive man from the bar. Suddenly he stands taller, his chin held high, and his voice is deep and commanding in a way that suggests authority and Bucky can’t help but listen to it. “Let’s go. This way.”

Steve starts jogging, and Bucky follows a step or two behind. Then Steve starts to sprint in a way that can only be described as _efficient_ ; his arms pump at stiff angles, his back is straight and his chest slightly pushed out. He breathes easily and steadily. His feet his the ground and he pushes off with grace, in the air for a second before his other foot hits the ground and he repeats the process. Right foot left foot right foot left foot. Never faltering in rhythm. Never slowing down. Efficient.

Running like this—it’s familiar, Bucky remembers. It’s been awhile since he’s actively _run_ from someone trying to catch him, but it’s easy to fall back into routine. Long strides, running toe-heel, arms pumping mechanically at his sides.

Sirens start behind them both; Bucky hears them getting closer. He runs faster, pumps his arms harder. They run at least three blocks before they turn; Bucky follows Steve’s lead as they run a few more blocks and turn again and again.

Soon Steve glides to a stop and Bucky follows. Steve takes Bucky’s arm and guides him into an alley, where Bucky puts his hands on his knees and tries like hell to breathe. Steve hasn’t even broken a fucking sweat.

Bucky’s back hits the wall and he slides into a sitting position. Steve sits next to him with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says after a few long moments. Bucky’s still breathing a little heavy, but he’s gotten it mostly under control, and he looks over when he hears Steve speak.

“For what?” Bucky asks.

“For getting out of control,” Steve replies. “They probably wouldn’t have called the cops if I hadn’t grabbed and pushed them around.”

“Well,” Bucky sighs. “They kinda deserved it. Even if I didn’t need you saving me.”

Steve smiles and chuckles. “They kinda did. And it wasn’t to save you,” he says. “I just don’t like bullies.”

There’s another quiet moment as Bucky finally gets his breathing totally under control. He listens to the sirens in the distance.

“So,” Steve starts. Bucky turns his head to look at him. “What is… this? What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asks.

“I mean,” Steve says, “we’re a True Bond. So… what should we do with that information? Should we just ignore it? Or should we start… _working_ together somehow?”

Bucky thinks about it. The men outside the bar know that he’s a familiar. They’re probably giving his and Steve’s description to the cops right now. They’re going to be looked for. Hunted for. The woman at the bar is gonna be questioned regardless. She’s soft on familiars. She might even lose her damn job, letting a witch and a familiar in the bar after curfew. People from the bar are going to recognize him. He’s not going to have a happy life here anymore.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Bucky tells him. “I’m gonna have to leave town.” He sighs. “I just got settled here, goddamn it.”

He buries his face in his hands. Fuck, he has to come up with a plan. He’s not sure what to do—he has some money, but definitely not enough to get him out of the city. It was a treat tonight to even go to the bar. He hasn’t eaten anything but ramen for weeks. If he leaves now with the money he has, he’ll be back to drinking boiled water for meals.

Steve is quiet for a long moment, considering. “Do you want to… live with me?” he offers tentatively. “I’ve got plenty of room, really. Too much room, in fact. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

Bucky’s knee-jerk reaction is to say, _No. Absolutely not._

But he’s running out of options.

“You’d do that?” Bucky asks instead, suspicion lacing his words.

Steve tilts his head. “I’d be happy to. Honestly. I need the company.”

“How far away do you live?” he asks.

Steve smiles. “Brooklyn.”

That’s a positive. Also a negative, though. Bucky grew up in Brooklyn, but it’s also hundreds of miles away. Bucky will have to _travel_ that far with Steve, a complete fucking stranger that he can’t figure out and doesn’t trust. That’s an issue.

He can’t stay here, but he has no money to leave. Usually he has longer periods to plan his escapes, and this time he has no time at all. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He doesn’t want to do this.

But… living with Steve could be a good thing. Witches leave people involved in a True Bond alone, even if they aren’t officially Bonded. Bucky could finally be free—if Steve were to not Bond with him, that is. He could live without the fear of getting taken again. That, he knows, is the deciding factor.

While there are some things about this that he doesn’t like, he’s left with fewer cons and more pros. He sighs, already regretting the words before their even out of his mouth.

“If I’m going to come with you, I have a few rules,” he tells Steve.

The guy lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. _Christ._

“You’ll come with?” he asks.

“Only if you agree that we don’t Bond. Not officially,” Bucky says.

Steve hesitates for such a short amount of time that Bucky’s sure he imagined it. “Deal,” the blond says, smiling. He holds out his hand for Bucky to shake, and Bucky takes it.

“We’ll leave tonight,” Steve says.


	3. Runaways / Brooklyn

 

>   **182 DAYS BEFORE**

Steve offers Bucky a hand to help him up. Bucky ignores him and stands on his own. Steve takes his hand back and brushes it on his jeans awkwardly.

“So, we’re doing this?” Steve asks him. “You’re sure?”

Bucky gives him a flat look. “I don’t really many other options, buddy, so yeah, we’re doing this.”

Steve coughs into his fist. Bucky makes Steve uncomfortable. Good.

“So, are you—how are we gonna do this? Do you want to pack some things to bring with you?”

“Sure.” Bucky nods. His stomach churns at the thought of leaving the state with a witch he barely knows.

“Can we go to my hotel first?” Steve asks. “I can pack and then we can take my car to your place.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bucky agrees. Steve starts out of the alley and Bucky follows behind, hands tucked into his pockets, curled tightly into fists.

He eyes Steve warily. He doesn’t want to do this. Frantically, he tries to think of  a plan B that he can fall back on. He doesn’t trust Steve, but he’s his best bet right now. If things go south, he’s sure he can handle himself. It’s nothing that he hasn’t had to do before.

+++

Steve’s hotel is only a few blocks away; a nice, fancy building that Bucky knows he could never afford to stay in on his own salary. They walk in, and Bucky just takes a moment to gather the scenery.

The hotel lobby has a fucking chandelier.

Bucky grew up with a rich family—he’ll admit to that. But ever since he left, he hasn’t seen a penny of his family’s money and works shit jobs for shit apartments and other shit necessities.

Steve waves at the girl working the front desk. She smiles and waves back. Steve gestures to Bucky to get a move on. Bucky catches up finally, just as the elevator Steve is waiting for arrives.

They take the elevator to the fifteenth floor and Steve leads Bucky to his room. He unlocks the door with a little card key, and then they’re inside.

The room is nice, and bigger than Bucky’s apartment. While Steve is preoccupied with packing, Bucky wanders around. He thinks he’s being sneaky as he nabs the soap from the bathroom and a package of nuts until Steve dryly tells him that those will be put onto his bill.

Bucky throws the nuts back, but he’ll be damned if he leaves the soap behind. He stuffs the bar, still wrapped in paper, into his back pocket.

Steve takes a long time to pack up his things. He has a giant fucking suitcase filled with what seems like two weeks’ worth of clothes. Eventually, Bucky gets tired of waiting and heaves a larges sigh before sitting at the edge of the bed and turning on the TV.

He flips through the channels before settling on a cartoonish movie and sitting back. Steve gives him a look that he can’t decipher before going back to packing.

Eventually, Steve zips up his bag and Bucky’s up like a shot at the sound, out the door and at the elevator as Steve catches up, his bag in tow.

They ride the way down in silence, and Bucky vaguely wonders if the drive to Brooklyn is going to be this silent when the doors open and Steve is making his way across the lobby to check out. The girl at the desk sounds friendly, and she and Steve banter back and forth, making small talk. Bucky wants to yell at them to hurry the fuck up, but Steve looks like he’s going to take his sweet time.

When Steve finally, _fucking finally_ , gets done at the desk, the two make their way out of the hotel and go to the parking lot where Steve’s car is parked.

It’s a black, sleek luxury car, and it looks like it would take Bucky at least two lifetimes to pay off.

“Nice car,” Bucky comments, as he gets inside and straps himself in.

Steve smiles politely at him. “Perks of the job,” he replies, buckling himself in. He doesn’t elaborate; Bucky wonders if that’s a topic that’s off-limits.

Steve puts the car in gear and they’re on their way. Bucky’s apartment isn’t far; he gives Steve directions and they’re there in under five minutes.

“I’ll be quick,” Bucky says, unstrapping himself while they’re parked in the parking lot.

“No,” Steve says, “I’m going with you.”

Bucky’s about to have a huge hissy fit when Steve gives him a look that tells him that Steve could break him with his pinky finger. Bucky sighs and gets out, and Steve follows.

 

His apartment isn’t much. It’s one room, with nothing on the walls and an air mattress pushed in one corner. It’s mostly deflated since Bucky left it this morning, crumpling under the weight of the heavy comforter on top of it; the nights are fucking cold in this place.

There’s a kitchenette, a stack of books by the mattress, no other furniture except for a desk lamp plugged into the wall, along with a phone charger.

Bucky’s mostly packed already; he’s been in this place a week, and he hasn’t unpacked his clothes from his last journey. He grabs the dirty clothes littering the floor already and starts stuffing them in the duffel bag along with the rest of his clothes.

“Do you rent this place? Don’t you need to give a notice to the landlord or something?” Steve inquires, looking around the stark apartment.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky says flippantly. “I’m here under a false name, anyway.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Oh,” he sputters. “Okay.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t, so Bucky just keeps shoving his clothes into his bag. He grabs his toothbrush and toothpaste from the bathroom, and shoves them in as well. When that’s finished, he decides to leave the air mattress and desk lamp, but takes the phone charger and wraps it up and puts it into the bag as well. After that, Bucky doesn’t have really anything that he can take.

He doesn’t have a car; he came here in a taxi. He already has his wallet, his phone—he’s packed and ready to go.

“Alright,” Bucky sighs. “I’m finished here.”

“Okay,” Steve says. He lets Bucky out if the apartment first, but silently refuses to let Steve walk behind him lest he does something while Bucky isn’t looking. He waits for Steve to exit the apartment, and then walks slightly behind him, letting him lead while not looking _too_ paranoid.

“So is ‘James’ your real name, or…?” Steve asks while they walk.

Bucky nods. “Yeah. Well. It’s my legal name. I usually go by ‘Bucky.’”

“Bucky,” Steve says, like he’s trying the name out on his tongue. “Is it okay if I call you that?”

Bucky glances at Steve. He looks completely genuine; Bucky knows that his nickname is sort of ridiculous, but Steve didn’t even laugh. Didn’t even blink an eye.

His stomach turns. He can’t get a read on Steve—he has a face that anyone could trust, and that’s exactly why Bucky is wary of him. Steve doesn’t show many emotions besides disapproval, and that’s something that makes him nervous.

“Knock yourself out,” Bucky says eventually.

They take the stairs out—the elevator is broken—and stride out of the building. Bucky hikes up the bag on his shoulder a little more as they exit the building and make for Steve’s car.

Bucky throws his things in the back and then gets into the passenger seat. This car seat is more comfortable than his fucking mattress. He shifts a little and settles in, ready to fall asleep.

As Bucky gets his seatbelt on, Steve is giving him a strange look. Bucky returns it until he speaks.

“So what’s your—” Steve stammers. “Your other form?”

“What?” Bucky asks.

“Your—other form?” He seems to be struggling to find the right way to phrase his question, which Bucky finds endearing. Most witches don’t care whether they’re insensitive or not, but Steve wants to find the least offensive way to say it. He doesn’t call Bucky an animal, a half-form, or asks him what _breed_ he is. Because Bucky’s not an animal. He’s a familiar.

Bucky smiles a little at him. “My familiar form? A, uh. A Dutch shepherd.”

Steve nods and smirks at him. “I was wondering why you smelled so bad,” he says lightly.

Bucky’s head snaps over to him because, “Did you just crack a fucking joke?”

He smiles innocently at him. “I wasn’t joking. You do smell really bad.”

“Fuck you, Rogers,” Bucky laughs. Perhaps this won’t be a shitty as he thought.

+++

Driving to Brooklyn takes a few days. They sleep in the car because stopping at hotels mean that people could find them. Bucky hasn’t showered in forever, and Steve is definitely the same. They get their meals at rest stops and gas stations, and Steve tells Bucky that he can’t drive the car. He knows that Steve is trying to be polite—Bucky is a passenger, he shouldn’t have to drive—but he’s just coming off as an asshole.

Three days straight with this guy, in close quarters, and he’s ready to rip his head off. Steve is the same in regards to Bucky.

But finally, after three days, Bucky sees the Brooklyn Bridge on the skyline just as the sun is rising. He sits up straighter in his seat, a ghost of a smile starting to form on his lips. It’s a fucking miracle.

Getting into the city take a little while, with all the traffic, but it’s well worth it. When they pull up to Steve’s place, Bucky’s jaw drops.

He lives in one of those old, giant brownstones with a thousand rooms and several floors. The front of the thing is half-covered in ivy. The fence is wrought iron and there are flower boxes in the windows. This place is beautiful, and must have cost a fortune.

 _Perks of the job_ , Steve had said.

He wasn’t fucking kidding.

“Wow,” Bucky says under his breath. He looks back at Steve, who’s smiling at Bucky’s reaction.

“Go on,” Steve says. “I’ll be out in a minute. Just need to grab my stuff.”

Bucky reaches into the back seat and grabs his duffel bag and then bounds up to the wrought-iron gate like a puppy. He unlocks it, and it swings open with a metallic creak. Bucky opens the door to the brownstone and looks around in wonder.

The place looks like something straight out of a magazine. The hallway is a tight fit, but there’s art donning the walls, paintings and drawings beautiful enough that they should be in museums. After toeing off his shoes, he passes a home library that has walls covered in bookshelves, and then the hallway opens up into a large front room with a huge staircase and a kitchen. Past that is a living area with a couch, chairs, and a TV.

Perks of the job, Bucky guesses. This is so much—it’s hard to take it all in.

He goes to poke around the living room. The TV is massive, but collecting dust—he wonders if Steve ever uses it. The couch is huge and overstuffed, with an afghan draped over one armrest. There are several chairs—a recliner and a simple armchair.

The only thing that isn’t modern and sleek like the rest of the place is an old, leather storage chest that is being used in place of a coffee table. The thing is massive, beaten-up and scratched, and, of course, locked.

Bucky hears the front door open as Steve clatters inside, carrying his luggage behind him. Bucky stands up and backs away from the chest, moving over to look at the movie selections in the cabinet next to the TV.

A few minutes later and Steve is walking into the living room, where Bucky is still studiously browsing over the movies.

“You can pick any room you want,” Steve says. “There’s a few on this floor and the second floor. There’s only one bedroom on the third floor—that’s mine. There’s also a basement, but there’s mostly stuff for magic and potions stuff down there, so I don’t know how much you want to stay there.”

Bucky smiles politely and nods. “Okay. I’ll go check those out.”

He grabs his duffel bag, which he had discarded on the floor, and goes back down the hallway to the stairs. He takes the stairs to the third floor.

Bucky notices that this level is much more scarce than the ground floor. The walls are white, the floor dark hardwood. There’s no splash of color, no paintings covering the walls like there are downstairs, no vases or any sort of furniture to make the place look like anyone is living in it at all.

Every room on the level is open to some degree—most rooms are empty, with shelves or something of the sort inside. One room is for storage, full of boxes.  

The last room, at the end of the hall, is Steve’s room—he knows it is, because it’s the only door on the entire level that’s locked.

Heartbeat picking up a little, Bucky backs off and makes his way to the second level.

He decides that the first bedroom he comes to is his new room, without looking at the rooms on the ground level.

There’s a queen-sized bed and a window overlooking the yard. The room is relatively small, the bed taking up most of the space, but it’s already a million times better than his old apartment.

Bucky drops the bag on the floor and steps inside, closing the door behind him. Now seems like the time for a good and proper freak-out.

_What the fuck is he stepping into?_

He’s living with a complete stranger. A complete fucking stranger that may or may not be doing Very Illegal Things. Steve’s job — whatever it is — is serious business. Considering how much he gets paid, paired with the fact that he doesn’t want to talk about it, means that Bucky could be getting in something way over his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's familiar form - a Dutch Shepherd  
>   
> 


	4. Past Lives (Pt. 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading the first three chapters! Your kudos are very much appreciated. If you're confused or have any sort of questions or anything, leave a comment and I will answer!

> **178 DAYS BEFORE**

What the fuck is good to say to the guy you don’t know very well but just moved in with?

Trick question: there’s _nothing_ good to say to that guy. Just things that are slightly worse than the alternatives.

Thankfully, Steve saves him the trouble.

“Can I ask you something?” he inquires.

Bucky looks at him and shrugs. “Shoot,” he answers.

“Why did you come with me?” Steve asks. “I mean, you don’t know me. You just met me. I could be a crazy psycho for all you know.”

“Well, if you were, that would be the lamest confession ever,” he points out.

“Bucky,” Steve says. “Seriously.”

Okay, he’s just met the guy, moved in with him, and now he’s being _chastised_ by him. Good to know. Good.

He thinks as quickly as he can, biting his tongue to make sure that he doesn’t say something extremely rude like he wants to. Bucky huffs out his nose. “You’re my True Bond, Steve. That’s gotta mean something, right?” he lies.

Steve thinks on it for a moment and then shrugs. “Okay, I get that,” he says. “But that’s stupid.”

Bucky blinks. “Um, okay,” he says.

“No, I just—okay, I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve says. “I just mean, what if I had been lying to you about having a place in Brooklyn? What if I had hurt you?”

“Then I would have punched and kicked my way out, like normal,” Bucky says, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks down at the table to resist glaring.

Steve doesn’t even blink at the words ‘like normal.’ “Why not run? In your familiar form? You need to be _safe_ , Bucky.”

Bucky purses his lips together. “I don’t know how.”

“How to what?”

“To change into my familiar form,” he says. He remembers how his parents told him about how he changed between so many different animals—bird, rabbit, wolf, jaguar, before finally settling on a Dutch shepherd when he was about nine. That’s what happens to most young familiars—changing into several different animals before the body settles on the one it likes. Then, they’re usually able to control their shifts by the time they turn fifteen. Bucky just suppressed it. He didn’t want anything to do with it.

His sister, Rebecca, was a little different. She did little changing—she settled into her familiar form easily.  

Steve gapes at him. There aren’t many familiars out there that just don’t know how to change into their other form. He’s one of the lucky few.

“I could teach you,” Steve says suddenly.

“How would you know?” Bucky says. The words come out sounding more accusatory than he means them to be.

“It’s all mental, isn’t it?” he asks. “I could help you bypass whatever shit you’re feeling, is all.”

Bucky sighs. This conversation is just—draining. He shakes his head and says, “I appreciate the offer, Steve, but I think I’m okay.”

Steve just shakes his head. “I think I could help.”

“Well, like you said, Stevie,” Bucky says, “I don’t really know you well enough.”

+++

Bucky spends a lot of time in his room. He hasn’t left the house since his arrival, because he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. Besides, he’s having fun breaking in the TV that Steve barely uses.

They’ve gotten into a sort of routine. In the morning, Buck wakes up later than Steve does. He goes downstairs and Steve is usually gone on a run, even though it’s March in New York and cold as fuck. Bucky makes breakfast for himself, brews coffee for the both of them, and watches TV while balancing his cereal bowl in his lap until Steve comes back. At that point in time, Bucky gets up, goes back into his room, usually passing Steve as he rests his palm on the walls and mutters a spell under his breath.

Bucky’s not sure which spell it is. He looks things up on the internet from his phone, trying to figure out what spell Steve could possibly be doing. He’s narrowed it down to a charm of sorts, since he seems to renew it every day, but that’s the only thing that he’s come up with.

Steve scares the shit out of Bucky, if he’s being honest. Steve is a good guy, or at least he’s polite. Bucky doesn’t understand him at all. He’s private and reserved, but he has a good enough heart to let Bucky move in with him. He cares about Bucky, which is a fucking mystery. Most of the time, when they talk, Steve gets all irritated with Bucky not taking care of himself in the way that Steve thinks he ought to.

Like today, for instance.

“There’s a wall in your mind that keeps you from changing, Bucky,” Steve says in exasperation. “Even if it weren’t you repressing your abilities, bottling shit up isn’t healthy in the first place.”

“Cool,” Bucky says, like the real asshole he is.

“James—” Steve stops. “I don’t know your full name.”

Bucky has to stop, because, first of all, Steve just tried to full-name him like his mother used to when Bucky was in trouble. Which is fucking hilarious.

But secondly, _there it is_. It’s taken Steve long enough to ask. He’s surprised he lasted this long, but he guesses Steve deserves to know—he hadn’t come to Bucky with the knowledge of his family in the first place, so he thinks Steve’s trustworthy.

Bucky smiles wryly and takes a quick drink of water before answering. “If I tell you, will you not bother me about this shit anymore?”

Steve stares at him and says, “Sure, if it’s that big of a deal.” Bucky can see that he’s lying through his fucking teeth but answers anyway.

“Barnes,” he says.

There’s a second where Steve just nods, but then he does a double take and his eyebrows pull together. “Wait, like—like the politician?”

Another drink of water. “Yep,” Bucky replies, resisting the urge to sigh. He gets this a lot when he tells people his lineage.

Steve just gapes at him for a few seconds. “I didn’t know that,” he says finally.

Not exactly what he was expecting, but okay. Bucky shrugs and says, “Yeah, well. I usually keep it under wraps.”

Steve walks over and rests his elbows on the counter, giving Bucky his full attention. “Why?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

Bucky swallows the sudden lump in his throat, leaning away from Steve’s sudden regard. “Because when I tell them that, I attract a certain kind,” he says.

“People asking for money,” Steve says.

Bucky snorts. “If only,” he mutters. Suddenly the conversation has turned from one topic that he didn’t want to talk about to an even more delicate topic that he doesn’t want to talk about. This is his life now.

“Then, what kind?” Steve asks again. His face is open, friendly, but Bucky’s heart is racing anyway.

Bucky’s hands clench. “Is this an interrogation?” he asks in a rigid tone.

“Buck,” Steve says softly, soothingly. “Don’t get mad. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

He just smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “ _You’re_ too nice, but other witches—when my dad died, he told me they would come flocking,” Bucky says in a low voice. “My dad wasn’t there to protect me anymore, it was just me and my little sister, and he knew that witches would came saying, ‘I can protect you. I can keep you safe.’ And he told me to not listen to them. They just wanted to use me to make their magic stronger. _That_ kind of people, Steve. The people that want a piece of me.”

His hand is clenched in a fist so tight that his fingernails are digging into his palms painfully. He slowly unfurls the fist and flexes his fingers, noticing where his nails left little crescent-shaped indents in his skin.

“Why me?” Steve asks after a long pause.

 _Because you didn’t look at me like a piece of meat when you first saw me_. “I told you. You’re my True Bond. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “No, it just means our magic syncs well. It doesn’t mean that we were going to be friends. It doesn’t even mean that we might get along. Personality and magic are different from each other.”

Bucky remains silent.

“What was the real reason?” Steve asks, leaning forward on the counter. “I know you’re smart enough to not believe that True Bonds mean an instant personal connection.”

Looking up, Bucky wipes his palms on his jeans to give him something to do with his hands. Finally, he says, “I didn’t have any other option, Steve. I had to get out of town and it was obvious I didn’t have any money. You were the most convenient option. The only option, really.”

Steve’s face is unreadable. Bucky can’t tell if he’s offended him or not, but he really hopes that Steve understands. Eventually, Steve just nods.

“Protection,” he says. “I get it.”

 _Protection_.

Bucky thinks about that word. That’s what his life has revolved around, really. Protecting himself. Protecting his family. He suppressed his ability to change because he thought he was protecting himself, but maybe Steve’s right. Well, Steve is probably right. He’s spent so much time like this, pretending to be human when he could be what he really is. It’s not like he can change his DNA—he can never be human.

He was born in this body. He might as well make the most of its abilities. He could keep doing what he’s always done—protect. Protect himself. Maybe, even, protect Steve, if he has to.

“I think,” Bucky says after a moment, “I think I would be okay with you coaching me. To learn how to shift into my familiar form.”

Steve nods. “We can start tomorrow,” he says, and turns away, taking a swig from his beer. He exhales and then there’s a silence, a silence that settles over the two of them comfortably, like a blanket.

“What about you, Steve?” he asks. “You live here for long?”

Steve smiles. “Anything I say won’t match up to what you’ve just said.”

“Good thing it’s not a competition.” He takes a long pull from his coffee, eyes not leaving Steve for a second.

“Really, Buck,” Steve says, “let’s just take a break.” He says it good-naturedly, with a smile on his face, and for a moment Bucky really believes that he’s being genuine.


	5. Sweat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the change in rating. :^)  
> Also, if there's a sentence that needs changing, like one that doesn't make sense, please comment and I'll fix it.

> **164 DAYS BEFORE**

Sweat runs down his face and stings his eyes.

“One more time,” Steve says. “Go again.”

There’s a mental block in his mind—so big that it feels like a physical thing—and Bucky is trying so hard to push past it and break through. Steve tells him that blocks in the mind are like walls: even if they crumble, there will still be bricks and dust that get in the way after he’s broken through. Right now Bucky feels like he’s using a hammer to try to bring down the walls of Jericho.

Magic is all about mental will-power. Bucky learned that in school, from textbooks. He always laughed, because it feels like it’s so much more than that. The human kids at school could never understand the physical toll that magic took on the body—the aches and pains of casting a new spell for the first time, the soreness in the muscles after changing back and forth from familiar to human multiple times.

He couldn’t control his familiar form well when he was younger. Any burst of emotion would have him changing back and forth from human to animal—a new animal every time, in fact, since it was before his body finally settled on the Dutch shepherd. If he was happy, suddenly he was a sparrow. If he was sad, a bear. Angry, a lion. And so on.

Trying to control something he’s repressed for so long, or even just trying to dig it up in the first place, is torture. He can barely remember what it felt like to be in his familiar form. It’s a miracle that he even remembers what form he took. He hasn’t done this in so long.

“C’mon,” Steve urges him. “C’mon, Buck, you got this.”

This is his third session with Steve, trying to get to change into his familiar form. He wasn’t even close to successful the last two times, and by now he feels like he’s getting worse at it rather than improving. Shouldn’t he have been successful by now?

He growls in frustration as he gives up and lets himself go limp. Steve catches him before he can hit the floor.

He feels weak and incompetent. Tearing himself from Steve’s grasp, he lets out a frustrated sound as he paces the room restlessly.

“You gotta be patient, Buck,” Steve says gently. “You can’t just expect to be a pro at this right away.”

“But it’s not _right away_ ,” he growls. “It’s been three sessions and I’m not even close to getting over this fucking mental block or whatever. I’m just as far as I’ve ever been.”

“It takes time,” Steve says.

“Bullshit!” he snaps, and then sighs. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Let’s just—let’s go again.”

“No,” Steve says. “I think we’re done for the day.”

“But—”

“We’re done,” Steve cuts him off. “You’re too wound up to make any progress right now. We’re only going to do this if you’re in the right headspace, okay?”

Bucky grits his teeth. “Fine,” he grumbles.

He knows Steve is right, but that doesn’t make him happy about it. Steve is usually right. He’s like an old man in the body of a twentysomething—most of his clothes consist of button-down shirts and khaki pants, he’s no-nonsense and right _all the fucking time_ , which pisses Bucky the fuck off.

He starts up on his way to his room. Steve follows behind, continuing up the staircase to the third floor once Bucky’s made it to his floor.

“You’re gonna get it, Bucky,” Steve says from the staircase.

Bucky looks up at him, standing in front of his door, unsure how to respond. He settles for “Yeah?” and feels as his face starts to flush a little.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms. He smiles a little bit and resumes climbing up the stairs. “G’night, Bucky.”

“Night, Steve,” Bucky says back, voice catching just a little in his throat.

+++

It’s a long night. His muscles are protesting every twist and turn he makes in bed, overworked from trying so hard to change into his familiar form this afternoon. He finally drifts off around three in the morning, five hours after he had settled down to sleep in the first place.

But when Bucky wakes up, Steve isn’t there.

He goes down for breakfast and assumes Steve is on his morning run. Bucky’s woken up a little later than usual, but he doesn’t see Steve in the kitchen eating breakfast, so he goes to cupboard and picks out what he wants to eat.

As he’s settling into his seat, he sees it: there’s a note on the counter.

 

 _Bucky,_  
_Sorry for leaving so suddenly. I had to do something for work. Below is my cell phone number if there’s an emergency.  
__I’ll be back in three days. Keep practicing on changing into your familiar form—it’s good for you to keep training even if I’m not there. I know you can get it._

_-Steve_

 

Below that, Steve had scrawled his number. The note was obviously thought of at the very last second, an afterthought to tie up loose ends. A sick feeling settles in Bucky’s stomach, and he knows that it’s going to be there for quite a while.

Okay. This is fine. This is good. Disregarding the semi-cryptic note left on the table, Bucky is alone. He can do whatever he wants.

Part of him wants to snoop around; old habits die hard. Whenever Bucky was in someone else’s home after his father died, he always checked the place out first, and if he found something suspicious, he would bolt. It was difficult to tell whether the person that he had just met him at the bar invited him over because they _actually_ wanted him to stay over, or if they had ulterior motives. It’s some of the only times that he appreciated when someone was just trying to get into his pants.

 

The first day Steve is gone, Bucky tries to make himself useful. He cleans around the house a little, washes the dishes and such. He goes on walks every day, even if it’s only around the block. But suddenly he doesn’t feel safe in Steve’s absence. He doesn’t want to go any farther than his neighborhood. He doesn’t even go near the subway.

He makes dinner for himself that night and then decides to call it early and go to bed. He finally falls asleep after hours of tossing and turning.

The second day is spent much like the first, with the addition of Bucky rifling through Steve’s movie collection and deciding to watch the entire _Back to the Future_ trilogy. He orders food for pick-up instead of making dinner for himself and falls asleep on the couch with a carton of fried rice in his lap.

The third day is spent in anticipation. Steve’s note was cryptic, and he kind of wants to know the details of his absence.

Bucky cleans up the mess he made on the couch with his dinner last night, vacuums up all the dried rice grains from the carpet and tries like hell to get the soy sauce stain out of the couch. Eventually he just flips the cushion over and calls it good.

 

Steve doesn’t get home that night.

+++

Steve’s been gone for seven days, and Bucky’s starting to panic.

He’s too restless to sleep for long. He tries calling Steve’s phone three times, and it goes to voicemail each time. He just hangs up without leaving a message. He paces the floor but doesn’t leave the house, in case Steve comes back.

He tries the phone one more time, and again it rings with no answer. This time, however, he decides to leave a message.

“Steve, you fucking asshole,” he growls into the receiver. “Either pick up your fucking phone or get your ass home.” End message.

The worst part is that Bucky isn’t even really mad. He’s just worried out of his fucking mind.

Part of him wonders why he’s so worried. The first answer that he comes up with is that he cares about Steve, which—that’s not good, a) because Steve is probably Doing Illegal Things with his “job” and b) because Bucky works really fucking hard on not getting attached to people, in case he has to up and leave, so he ignores that possibility. Eventually he chalks it up to the instinct of a familiar being worried over his True Bond. Could happen to anyone. It’s fine. 

On the seventh day after Steve’s departure, Bucky’s watching some bullshit show on TV. It’s two in the morning and he can’t sleep. His eyes want to close, but his mind won’t shut up long enough for him to actually drift off. Just when he’s about to rifle through Steve’s cabinet to see if he has some sort of concoction to help him sleep—he knows potions are Steve’s specialty—he hears the front door open and close quietly.

Bucky freezes, his hands still in the cabinet. He slowly lowers his hands and pads over to the front hallway, trying his hardest to be quiet in case it’s not Steve.

He lays his eyes on a large silhouette standing in the door, duffel bag in hand. Bucky breathes a huge sigh of relief.

“Steve?” he asks, approaching slowly.

“Buck.” Just then, Steve steps forward from the dark of the hallway and into the light of the living room.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Bucky blurts.

Steve’s face looks fucking awful. Both of his eyes are blackened, there are cuts on his cheekbones and chin.

“Thanks,” Steve says dryly, but it’s obvious that even speaking hurts.

Bucky stares for a few seconds before saying, “We need to get you to a hospital.” He turns to find the keys to the car.

“No hospitals,” Steve says. Bucky can hear him limping inside behind him.

“Steve—”

Steve grabs Bucky’s shoulder and  turns him around. “No,” he says— _pleads_. “No hospitals.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat. “Okay,” he agrees. “No hospitals.”

Steve looks over his face for a second. “There’s a first-aid kit in the farthest-right cabinet. Could you…?”

“Okay,” Bucky says again. Steve makes his way over to the couch while Bucky stands in place for a second before snapping out of his stupor and making his way to the kitchen to find the first-aid kit that Steve was talking about.

He opens it up and sees that there’s an assortment of healing potions and salves. All the remedies look homemade, in glass bottles labelled with tape and corked with rubber stoppers. He carries the box with him to the couch.

Steve sits up when Bucky approaches, and Bucky kneels in front of him and sets the kit on the large leather chest in front of the couch.

“I’ll do it,” Bucky says before Steve can take the kit away from him. Steve raises an eyebrow (with difficulty) at him.

Bucky’s not even sure where that came from, but he reasons, “I can see your face better than you can, pal.”

Steve shrugs. “Fair enough. I’ve got road rash on my arm and back, too.”

“Damn,” Bucky curses, opening the bottle labelled ‘ _BRUISES_.’ He grabs a cotton ball and gets some of the potion on it. It smells sweet, like flowers. “How’d this happen?”

Steve just chuckles darkly. “Perks of the job,” he says.

Bucky wants to vomit. “Close your eyes,” he says instead.

Steve does as Bucky tells him. He closes his eyes, and Bucky dabs some of the potion on Steve’s face. Wherever he touches Steve’s face with the potion suddenly heals. The bruises heal in seconds, changing from a sickly black-purple to brown, to yellow, to Steve’s normal skin color.

Whatever this shit is, it’s high-quality. Steve really is a pro at this kind of stuff.

Once Bucky’s finished with the bruises on Steve’s eyes, he moves on to the ones on his chin. Then he picks up the bottle labelled ‘ _CUTS & SCRAPES’_ and gets to work on the numerous small cuts on Steve’s face, spreading the salve with his finger and watching as the scrapes heal and disappear before his eyes.

All of Steve’s potions are aromatic, unlike the stuff that people buy at the store all the time. Bucky wonders if Steve adds some sort of perfume to it, or if it’s just Steve’s touch that makes them smell this way.

He tilts his chin up and looks Steve in the eye and says, “Take your shirt off.”

Steve smiles, looking amused. “Usually I take a little more romancing.”

Bucky scoffs but deep inside he’s panicking like a bitch, internally screaming, all that jazz. It just figures that he would start feeling things for Steve. It just fucking figures.

“I’ll take you out to dinner afterwards,” he says dryly.

Steve smiles and takes his shirt off, and Bucky wants to throw himself out a fucking window because _what the fuck, why did he volunteer for this, he’s such a fucking idiot._ Bucky figured that Steve was ripped, but the old-man clothes that the guy wears on a daily basis really don’t do him justice.

But, besides that. The road rash covers almost his entire arm, from shoulder to mid-forearm. Then it stretches to his side over his ribcage, and part of his back. The sight of it makes Bucky hiss in sympathy. How did Steve tolerate putting a shirt on over that?

“Jesus,” Bucky says. He doesn’t want to see it, but he can’t tear his eyes away.

“You gonna do something, or you wanna just keep looking?” Steve says. Bucky can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, snapping out of his trance. He reaches into the first aid kit, rooting around for the bottle he needs. He sees the bottle marked ‘ _BURNS_ ’ and figures that it stretches as far as friction burns, and opens it. It’s another salve, and Buck spreads some onto his fingers.

“I’m not sure I’m going to have enough,” Bucky says.

Steve nods. “I’ll make more tomorrow, just—get what you can for right now.”

Bucky touches the road rash with the salve and Steve’s face pinches up a little in pain, his blue eyes clouded and a wrinkle forming between his brows. He wants to kiss that line away, wants to soothe the pain. He’s so close to Steve’s face right now, he could just lean forward and—

Oh.

 _That’s_ new.

Bucky clears his throat in a way that’s totally not awkward and doesn’t obviously give away his thoughts.

Bucky gets most of the road rash. Where he touches Steve skin, relief passes over his face until he’s nearly slack with it. He doesn’t have enough of the salve to reach the abrasions near his lower back, but Bucky figures he should draw the line somewhere.

He notices that there are bruises and smaller cuts on Steve’s back, and grabs the bottles to take care of them, but Steve grabs his hand before he can open the bottles back up again.

“Take a break,” Steve says, a small smile on his face. “You’re about to pass out. You should go to bed.”

Bucky sighs and nods, and Steve releases his wrist. He sets the bottles into the little case that he had gotten them from and starts making his way up the stairs. Now that Steve’s mentioned it, he really _is_ tired. He stifles a yawn and starts making his way up the stairs.

“Hey,” Steve calls from the living room.

Bucky pauses on the staircase. “Yeah?” he calls back.

“Did you stay up for me?” he asks.

 _Yes_. “Don’t flatter yourself, Rogers,” Bucky deadpans. He continues up the stairs.

He is tired, yes, but decides the best course of action is to take a long, hot shower to massage the soreness out of his back from leaning forward for so long, and to get the dried blood off his hands.

The bathroom is connected to his own room, which is something very exciting to him. He starts the water and intermittently checks the temperature, shedding his clothes and stepping in the tub when the water is warm enough.

Bucky sighs as he lets the spray wash over his shoulders. Even though he’s been here for weeks, he isn’t _used_ to having a shower to himself. God, it’s been so long since he’s had a hot shower for himself—the one at his old apartment didn’t have any hot water, and before that he had to shower at a gym near the place where he was staying. This place—this is fucking phenomenal. Endless hot water. Wonderful water pressure. Jesus fucking Christ.

He just stands there, in the spray, for a long time. When he starts to wash his hair, he realizes that it’s gotten a little long—he’ll have to cut it soon. Shutting his eyes tightly, he washes the shampoo out of his hair and sighs.

He grabs the bar of soap that he stole from the hotel and runs it under the water for a second.

Spreading the soap over his stomach, he runs his hands over the numerous scars and bumps, the little moles and imperfections that make him think back to the cuts and scrapes on Steve’s own chest and back.

Steve’s body. Probably not the best thing to be thinking about in a hot shower.

It’s been too fucking long since he’s had sex, he thinks. Steve basically foiled Bucky’s last attempt of hooking up with anyone; the night they met, when he walked into the bar and got them both booted out.

Idly, Bucky wonders what Steve would be like in bed—usually, Steve comes across as eager-to-please and soft. He wonders if those traits would transfer to the bedroom; would Steve be gentle and slow?

Bucky grunts and wraps a hand over the erection that’s forming between his thighs. Heat buds and blooms in his stomach when he starts to pull, starting a slow rhythm.

Would he ride Bucky until they’re both sweaty and so strung out that they come together? Would he cover Bucky in a thousand kisses, listen to every one of Bucky’s desires—and hold him as they both come?

Or, Bucky wonders, would he be the exact opposite—if Steve would be rough and take control. He imagines that Steve wouldn’t really be a talker, but Bucky’s got a mouth on him enough for them both. He wonders if he would grab Bucky and kiss him until they’re both gasping for air. If he would throw Bucky down on a bed and jerk him off quick so that Bucky’s orgasm would make him loose and spread-out so it would be easy to open him up. So it would be e asy and effortless for Steve to fuck him senseless.

Yes, _yes_ , that’s a thought that Bucky likes. His head falls back, a gasp escaping from his lungs. He jerks himself harder, the liquid heat in his stomach reaching a boiling point. His breath is labored, sugared with quiet little moans— _uh, uh, uh_ …  He reaches out with his free hand and grips it against the tile wall, fingers slipping through the water as he tries to steady himself.

He wonders if Steve would pin Bucky’s hands down on the bed and _take_ what he wants; Bucky knows he’s ripped, he’s definitely strong enough to—with those tight fucking shirts he wears, his giant fucking biceps. God. Bucky wonders if Steve would fuck him hard and deep, if he would suck a hundred purple bruises into his stomach and chest. He would… he would pull Bucky’s hair and scratch parallel red lines into his back and bite his neck—and— _fuck_ —

That’s the thought Bucky comes to. Words fall to pieces in his mouth so instead he moans, loud and unrestrained, shaking in the aftermath.

He chokes himself on Steve’s name, vision going white around the edges. His thighs tremble, and it takes a few minutes before he comes back to himself fully. By the time he realizes himself, the water is running a little cooler than when he started, and his fingers are pruning.

He licks his lips and turns the water off, shoving the shower curtain back and stepping out.

Fuck. He’s fucked.


	6. The City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try my best to update every week, on Saturday or Sunday. Enjoy the chapter!
> 
> (Also, have any of you seen Civil War yet? It doesn't come out until May 6th in my country!)

 

> **143 DAYS BEFORE**

Bucky hasn’t looked Steve directly in the eye for more than a week.

Since realizing his feelings, he’s been having a difficult time being around Steve. Before, when he was ignorant of his affection, it was much easier—he didn’t have to put conscious effort into his actions or thoughts. But now, that’s all he thinks about when he and Steve are in the same room together.

There have been exactly two things on his mind in the past week. One, hoping Steve doesn’t find out about his crush—and that’s all it is, it’s a crush, a _dumb crush_ —and two, trying to find some way to get over it.

They’re sitting on the couch, watching a movie in silence. Bucky isn’t even paying attention—he’s too busy making sure not to make a fucking move, because Steve is really close to him and Bucky kinda wants to hold his hand.

But then, there’s a knock on the door.

Bucky jumps at the sound, and Steve merely looks up, confused. He feels his face flushing in embarrassment. Hopefully Steve didn’t see Bucky jump nearly out of his skin at the sound of _a door being knocked on_. Jesus Christ.

They haven’t had someone come to the door since Bucky got here. Bucky was pretty sure by this point that Steve doesn’t really have friends, considering how he never leaves his house except to run in the mornings, alone, or disappear for weeks at a time, which Bucky never sees happen anyway. He’s figured that it’s a salesman of sorts and goes back to watching the movie while Steve stands up and pads over to the door in sock feet. When Bucky hears him open the door, he immediately says, “Peggy!” in the loudest, most excited voice Bucky’s ever heard him speak with. Another voice answers, a woman’s voice.

Immediately, Bucky perks up, leaning over the back if the couch to try to see to the hallway. When he can’t spot Steve and his guest, he stands, abandoning the movie and making his way to the hall.

He sees Steve there, smiling a huge grin, eyes lit up like it’s fucking Christmas, and a woman standing in the open doorway—the most gorgeous woman Bucky’s ever seen. A brunette with a bright gleam in her chocolate brown eyes, hair falling over her shoulders in curls, lips painted bright red and a blue dress hugging her hourglass figure. She’s like a dream come true.

Bucky hears a light buzzing sound in his head—resonance. This woman is a witch, which fills him with a strange sense of relief.

“Bucky,” Steve says, smiling from ear to ear. Bucky can barely tear his eyes away from the woman to make eye-contact with Steve as he speaks. “This is Peggy Carter. She’s an old friend of mine. We work together.”

 _Old friend of mine. Work together._ Part of Bucky wants to be a little shit and ask Peggy what the job is, but he knows that it’s a closed subject for Steve, so instead he looks to Peggy as she approaches him.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she says, stepping forward and offering her hand to shake. Bucky takes it without a second thought and gives her a polite, if somewhat shy, smile.

“Likewise,” Bucky says.

“We’ll be in the other room,” Steve says to Bucky, putting his hand on the small of Peggy’s back and guiding her into the living room.

“I’ll join you in a second, then,” he says.

“Yeah, uh—” Steve starts saying, eyes shifting back and forth between Bucky and Peggy, and that’s when Bucky finally sees it.

Steve looks at her with fondness in his eyes. He looks at her like she’s the sun. How could Bucky have missed that before? It’s obvious.

The two disappear into the living room, Steve’s sentence left unfinished as he starts talking animatedly with her. Lead fills the pit of Bucky’s stomach.

Bucky knows that he looks at Steve the same way he looks at her. Steve’s his sun. Jealousy and disappointment make his heart physically hurt. His fists open and close at his sides, and after another moment of standing there, Bucky turns and grabs his jacket off the hook by the door. Steve doesn’t want him here. He wants to be alone with Peggy. He’s not even paying attention to Bucky.

“Wait. You going somewhere?” Steve asks as he hears the front door open. “I thought you were going to join us.”

Bucky’s surprised that Steve has pulled his attention away from Peggy long enough to notice that Bucky even existed at all. He slaps fake cheer into his voice and says, “Changed my mind. Just wanted to go for a walk, is all.”

“Alright. We have a training session at eight, tonight, though, so remember that.”

Bucky hums noncommittally. That’s in an hour. He’s not even going to be half finished with his night by that point in time.

There’s a pause before Steve calls, “You alright, Buck?” his voice sounding mildly concerned. Bucky grits his teeth, tightens his hands into fists.

“I’m just peachy,” he calls back, voice losing warmth, as he pulls his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “I’ll be back.” He’s gone and out the door before Steve can open his mouth again.

It’s April in Brooklyn and he really wishes he had the sense to grab his scarf before he left the brownstone, but he doesn’t want to go back and face the potential of Steve asking him why he’s suddenly acting weird. So he keeps walking, down the block and to a street corner.

Walking through Brooklyn is one of the things that always has been able to clear his mind. The deafening sound of people talking, yelling, walking, arguing. Cars honking, revving, passing through the city streets. The smell of food vendors and exhaust. Some people may find it overwhelming, but to Bucky, it’s the symphony song that he falls asleep listening to— _has_ fallen asleep listening to for most of his life.

He walks without direction, because he knows this place like the back of his hand. He can get anywhere in this city to and still find his way back home. And even if he gets tired of walking, he can always take a cab.

The thought makes him smile and he wonders why he ever left New York. Sure, he was on the run. But why did he have to leave the place completely?

He keeps walking and shoves his hands into his pockets. He really should have taken a scarf, some gloves—it’s cold as shit. He huffs a breath that mists into the air and turns into the closest coffee shop so he can warm up.

Bucky originally planned to find a bar to drink himself into a stupor, but he decides that that’s probably not the best idea right now, considering he doesn’t have enough money for a good drink right now. Steve insists on giving him money, so he’s got _some_ cash, but not enough to get him properly drunk like he wants to be.

So he just stands in line while he waits to order.

He’s almost forgotten how quickly things move in New York. People are in a rush all the time to get from one place to another, they don’t have time to fuck around. If someone takes to long to order, a riot damn-near starts in the whole fucking restaurant. Bucky missed this. Everywhere else, people seemed to move so damn slow, taking their time to get a job done that a New Yorker could’ve had finished a half an hour before.

He orders a latte of some sort—he doesn’t know what it is, he’s mostly getting it because he needs his hands warm and the drink is cheap. He sits down in the coffee shop for a while, but the place is crowded with people flocking in from the cold streets, so Bucky takes off and continues his adventure around town.

Things are different from the last time he was in Brooklyn.

Bucky walks down the street and he resonates with a few witches and familiars that he sees walking along. But the witches avert their eyes and walk now.

It wasn’t like that before. An unbonded familiar of his power scale and age—he was beating the witches off with a stick, last time he was here. Him being around Steve has had an impression on him, even if the two aren’t officially bonded.

It’s nice, sometimes, to not be noticed.

 

He walks for a long time, turning at random places and trying to be spontaneous. He can always find his way home if he needs to, but for right now he just wants to walk someplace that he hasn’t been around a lot, perhaps. He just wants to get lost—as much as one can get lost in a city where the streets are numbered.

But when Bucky finally realizes where he is, he’s in his old neighborhood, staring down the house that used to belong to him and his family.

The house looks just like it always has—there’s a different car out front, of course, but that seems to be the only change. Bucky watches the house for a long moment, his hands shoved into his pockets. He swallows the lump in his throat and takes a step forward unconsciously. When he realizes what he’s doing, he stops and turns away. He remembers why he left Brooklyn now.

\---

It had been just a week before his father’s funeral. Bucky lived in a large house in Brooklyn—his mother was a doctor before she died, his father a lawyer before he became a politician. His father was well-respected enough—for a politician, that is.

But his father has been diagnosed with a disease that even magic couldn’t help. Legal magic, that is.“You need to protect yourself,” his father wheezed. “People will come after you. They know how powerful our line is. They know how powerful _you_ are.”

Bucky just shook his head. He didn’t see himself as anything special. He had already been suppressing his familiar form for years already.

A combination of riches, power, timing, and influence made for a perfect storm. Bucky was going to be eligible for bonding, now. Before, any witches hoping to form bonds with Bucky had to ask his father. But now his father was going to be out of the picture.

“You have no idea how many I turned away,” he told Bucky gravely.

Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat. “What do I do?”

Bucky’s father looked at him solemnly and said, “You have to leave. If you have to leave before my funeral, do it. Just don’t stay here.”

“What about Rebecca?” he asked, throat closing. With their mother gone and no close relatives, Bucky wasn’t sure if he could keep Rebecca safe.

Bucky’s father shook his head. “You have to leave her here. She’ll be in good hands.”

“Dad…” Bucky pleaded.

“No,” his father commanded sharply. “You need to leave her here. I’ve arranged for her to be taken care of. Trust me.”

His father died just a few days after his talk with Bucky. The funeral was short, and many people arrived that weren’t exactly family or even friends—such is the funeral of an old politician. Bucky wanted them all to leave. He wanted the funeral to be between him, his family, and no one else. Half of these people didn’t even like his father, they’re just politicans who showed up so they don’t get bad publicity.

His father asked him to speak at the funeral. Bucky wanted to say no, because he’d fuck it up. He wouldn’t speak the way his father deserved him to speak, wouldn’t say the things that he truly deserved to have spoken at his funeral. But he does it anyway.

 

Bucky thought, for a moment, that people would leave him be for at least a little while. His father had died, and he was in mourning—he had to figure out his and Rebecca’s living situation, he had to figure out what the fuck he was going to do with his life. He thought people would have the common courtesy to wait to bombard him with their bond requests until at least a few weeks later.

He was dead fucking wrong.

In a week, Bucky got twelve callers. _Twelve._ It came to the point that he stopped answering the door, because he didn’t want to deal with all the asshole witches that kept coming to his door and asking him for a moment of his time. He didn’t know those people, but they knew him—they memorized his family history, they knew how “pure” his bloodline is, therefore making him a stronger familiar. Bucky told each and every one of them that everything they know is bullshit, and that they needed to leave before he calls the police.

Bucky thought that perhaps he could get by himself. But with each passing day, he realized that these people weren’t going to leave him be. They were just going to get more impatient, more forward with their offers. Perhaps one day they would get tired of waiting and force a bond by theirself.

So he started packing a bag. He took clothes, cash, credit cards, food—anything that would help him survive by himself. He’d leave the next morning, in the early hours, before anyone could stop by his house.

And Bucky, for the first time in years, disobeyed his father’s orders. He took Rebecca with him.

\---

Bucky gets back home at ten o’clock, two hours after Steve asked him to get home. He doesn’t have the energy to explain himself.


	7. Whiskey

> **135 DAYS BEFORE**

Surprisingly, Steve wasn’t actually angry when he saw Bucky the next morning. He told Bucky to tell him if he was going to stay out and how long—mostly because it’s New York and people can be fuckin’ crazy sometimes, and he was a little worried. Other than that, though, he says, he just hung out with Peggy.

Peggy comes over all the next week, and Bucky’s forced to have conversation with her. Begrudgingly, he finds that he likes her. A lot. She’s funny and quick-witted, hot as all hell and sharper than a tack. Her red lipstick draws Bucky’s eyes to her mouth and her accented voice could soothe Bucky to sleep. She and Steve spend a lot of time in the basement, where Bucky assumes they’re working on something together. Steve never invites him down, so he assumes that he’s not allowed to be with them.

He’s jealous as fuck. Whenever they’re not in the basement, they’re in the living room, talking to each other, teasing and poking fun. Bucky sits off to the side, feeling like a third wheel. They stare at each other and Bucky sees the fondness in Steve’s eyes, the brightness in Peggy’s. They simply like being around each other.

He knows he’s an awful person, but that doesn’t stop him from wishing that Peggy would leave so that he could have Steve for himself. Or that both of them would leave so he wouldn’t have to see them acting the way they do around each other.

And really, what can Bucky do? Steve deserves someone like Peggy. Someone who knows him and can treat him right. Bucky’s just piggybacking off of Steve’s salary, too afraid to leave the house for long in case someone recognizes him. Like that’s even a problem anymore.

He’s just lazy and worthless. He can’t even change into his familiar form. He can’t do anything.

One day, Bucky makes his way down the stairs in the morning after getting dressed. He’s about to go to the kitchen when the sound of Steve’s voice stops him. And then Peggy’s voice answers.

Peggy is here.

But… Peggy was here last night, and now she’s here in the morning… that means she must have stayed the night.

His heart stops. She stayed the night. Then—she could have—oh.

Bucky silently makes his way from the staircase to the front hallway, where he quickly puts on his shoes and throws a jacket over his shoulders. He needs to leave. He needs to get out.

He’s out the door and on the street before he realizes it. He hops on the subway because he doesn’t know exactly where he wants to go. Well, that isn’t exactly true. He knows where he wants to go. He’s twenty-two years old and he’s just had his heart broken—he’s going to a fucking bar to drown his sorrows. He just doesn’t know _which_ bar.

He ends up wandering in Manhattan for hours, because it’s about nine o’clock in the morning and Bucky’s not much of a morning drinker. So he spends some more time going around shops, visiting little touristy places and talking to street vendors, who get frustrated when they realize that he’s not there to buy.

He finds himself outside of the New York Public Library, a huge white building with marble lions outside. They’re perfectly carved, plus they’re enchanted so that they lounge on their pedestals, yawning and grooming themselves. Human children surround them and point, jump up and down in excitement.

The sight makes Bucky smile. The idea that a human generation is growing up to not only to tolerate magic, but to be excited by it and embrace it—that’s a world that Bucky would like to live in. Of course, they’re not exactly there yet.

The library is a wonderful place, in Bucky’s mind—the space seems to encourage the presence of magic rather than shutting it down. Bucky decides to go into the library, because why the fuck not. He hasn’t been here in a long time, and he realizes that it must have been too long—the sight of the main reading room makes his breath catch in his throat. The main reading room is huge and spacious, yet still managing to look homey and crammed. There’s row after row of wooden tables. Bookshelves line the walls, and huge windows allow for streams of natural light to pour inside. The ceiling is ornately carved, with moving painted scenery of pink and yellow clouds on a baby-blue sky.

Even though it’s mid-morning on a work day, the place still has a lot of people packed inside, yet it’s still relatively quiet. Bucky claims a chair by putting his jacket over the back, and then goes to pick out a book.

The room is packed with other witches and familiars. Bucky’s resonating so much he feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, so he decides to pick a book quicky and focus his eyes on that before he goes nuts.

He sits down and spends a few hours reading _The Little Prince_.

 

When it gets to be late afternoon, he gets up and decides to go for lunch. There’s a little deli a few buildings down from the library so Bucky decides that that’s his best bet, and makes his way over.

He walks so much his feet hurt and he’s tired, but he can’t go back home. He can’t stand to be in the same room as Steve and Peggy—staring at each other, talking to each other, laughing, that spark of chemistry between the two of them.

The sky is cloudy. He’s looking up at it, standing in the middle of the sidewalk while civilians make their way around him. Several times, a people bump into him, yell at him to _get moving and stop standing there_. But he’s stuck, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Steve. For a moment he thinks that perhaps this is more than just a dumb crush. Perhaps it’s a little something more.

Which is stupid, because how could you have feelings for a guy he doesn’t know anything about other than his name?

He snaps out of his reverie and makes his way to the deli, standing in the quick-moving line as he waits to order. When he gets his food, he goes and sits in a corner booth by himself and eats. He takes the break to check his phone, and sees that Steve has been texting him all day. The sight makes his heart squeeze in his chest.

_8:35 AM: i heard the door open, did you just leave?_

_9:03 AM: buckyyyy_

_10:47 AM: are you mad at me?_

_11:35 AM: are you okay at least?_

_1:18 PM: buck_

_2:00 PM: just let me know youre ok._

He closes the chat and shuts off his phone, deciding to roam the city.

 

It’s six o’clock and cold as fuck. Bucky gets out of a cab and follows a pair of guys into a bar called Josie’s.

There are groups and couples scattered around the place, those drinking alone sitting at the counter. Bucky figures that’s where he belongs, and goes to grab a spot. He gets his usual drink—whiskey, neat—and waits there while staring at his hands. When the bartender hands him his drink, he downs a gulp of it and tries his hardest not to sputter or spit it out. The stuff tastes like shit and fire.

A man slides into the seat next to him, and Bucky can’t help but feeling a bit of déjà vu. He sighs and takes a small sip of his whiskey.

“So,” the guy next to him says. “What brings you here?”

Bucky glances over at him , just to make sure that he’s the one being addressed. “What do you mean?” he asks, tipping back another drink and downing the rest. He really should slow down, but he forces himself to swallow the burning liquid. He _hates_ alcohol.

The guy rests his elbows on the bar, leaning forward on his stool. “There are two reasons to get drunk in this world,” he says, the corner of his lips quirking up in the barest hint of a smile. “One is because you’re having fun. The other is because you want to drown your sorrows. You’re definitely not having fun, so you must be drowning your sorrows.”

Bucky tilts his head, surveys the man talking to him; he’s kinda short, with shoulder-length blond hair. His face is kind, and open, and he’s got smile lines near his mouth. He wears a suit and tie—Bucky would guess that he’s probably a lawyer or some other business type. He hears a buzzing in his head again when he studies him more closely— resonance. This guy’s a witch. A powerful one, at that; Bucky can _feel_ it, like it’s a tangible thing. That’s probably how he can tell Bucky’s pissed and drowning his sorrows. Usually he isn’t usually the type to go pouring his heart out to strangers, but this guy asked, so.

He sighs. “The guy I… the guy that I really like doesn’t care.” He waves down the bartender for a refill.

The stranger nods. “Harsh. Is there someone else? Some other guy?” he inquires.

Bucky scoffs, taking his drink and tipping it towards his lips. “Some other _girl_.”

The man sucks air through his teeth. “That’s rough, buddy.”

Shaking his head, Bucky continues, “He hasn’t spoken more than ten words to me since she started hanging around.” He sighs again, taking another sip of his drink. “What about you?” Bucky asks. “Drowning your sorrows or having fun?”

The guy quirks his mouth a little. Not quite a smile, but almost. “Haven’t decided yet.”

Bucky laughs. “I know that feeling,” he says. He takes another drink of his whiskey and almost gags.

“Hope you got that neat,” the guy tells him, shifting in his seat a little. “Josie’s water has issues.”

“I don’t think it’s just the _water_ that has issues, man,” Bucky points out.

The man laughs, a real smile lighting up his face. He holds out his hand for Bucky to shake. “Foggy Nelson,” he says.

Bucky takes his hand, shaking it once. “Bucky Barnes,” he replies.

Foggy takes a drink out of his own glass, not even making a face at the taste of it. The guy must either have a high pain tolerance or be a veteran to this dump. “So you really like this guy, huh?” he asks.

Bucky’s stomach drops again. He picks up his glass, swirling the drink around inside it, watching the amber liquid turn round. “That’s a fucking understatement,” he mumbles, and then takes another swig.

Bucky doesn’t just _like_ Steve. Steve is—well. He’s a golden boy. Not even his usual type, really. He usually goes for the darker, less morally upright types. But Bucky is amazed by Steve’s goodness, the brightness that surrounds him when he’s with Peggy. He wishes he could be that way with Bucky. 

Steve’s the sun, and Bucky is the moon, hoping to catch the light that Steve emits to make him glow. Steve is what makes the Earth warm, what makes life possible. Bucky just pushes and pulls at the tides. He’s just something to look at in the night.

The two of them banter back and forth, talking about nothing and everything all at once. Bucky learns that Foggy is a lawyer in his own practice with his friend. He talks about a girl named Karen, and Bucky can tell by the way that he speaks about her that perhaps there’s something more there than friendship, but when he asks Foggy about it, he just shrugs and takes another drink from his whiskey. The two get drunk and play pool (where Bucky gets his ass beat) and then move on to darts (where Bucky gets his ass beat again).

Foggy talks to him about Steve. Bucky tells him all about Steve, all about how he’s private and reserved. Foggy listens to Bucky’s long rambling and offers advice.

They don’t stop drinking, going through beers and whiskeys, and Foggy even takes a drink of vodka at one point, which he sputters out the second it reaches his tongue. Bucky laughs and points, nearly doubling over.

He _loves_ alcohol.

Well, he’s better acquainted with it now, so he understands it better. His mind is fuzzy, his stomach is fuzzy, his vision is fuzzy and nothing in the world hurts right now.

Eventually, last call comes and Josie kicks the two of them out. They fall out of the bar and into the sidewalk, giggling and grasping each other for an anchor to hold them. They hail a taxi and slip inside together. Bucky tells the cabbie his address and Foggy gives him a look.

“Brooklyn? What’re you doing in Hell’s Kitchen?”

Bucky shrugs and smiles. The cabbie warns him the fare will be a bit high, but Bucky tells him to not worry. The taxi takes him home and drops him off a block away, and when Bucky starts to get out, Foggy goes along with him.

He insists on walking Bucky all the way home. They both stumble out of the cab and make their way from the corner to Bucky’s place, Foggy’s feet tripping over nothing as they go.

His new friend goes with him down the sidewalk, just as drunk as he is, and they’re giggling like two assholes but it doesn’t matter because, as mentioned, _nothing in the world hurts right now_. Everything is fine right now. He could do anything he wants to. Anything.

When they make it to the gate of Bucky’s home, Bucky opens it and Foggy leads him to the door. On the porch, Bucky looks at him as he digs his key out of his pocket. It’s almost two in the morning. That’s one of the greatest things about the North—no curfew times for familiars and witches.

“You sure you don’t wanna stay the night?” Bucky asks, unlocking the front door. “Plenty of room.”

“I’m sure,” Foggy says. “I got work in the morning. Thanks, though.”

For a drunk guy, Foggy is surprisingly coherent. “Okaaaay,” Bucky drawls. “But it’s your loss.” He digs out his wallet and takes Foggy’s hand, shoving a few crumpled bills into it. “Cab fare,” he explains.

Foggy shrugs and thanks him, and Bucky lets himself inside and watches as Foggy makes his way out of the yard, closing the gate behind him. Only a few seconds later, a cab makes its way down the street, and Foggy flags it down and gets in. Bucky lets out the breath he was holding. Now all he has to do is get to his room without Steve seeing he’s drunk.

He locks the door and shoves his keys and wallet back into his pocket, sighing deeply. It was a good night, he thinks—perhaps spawning from a bad situation, but he likes Foggy. They exchanged numbers. Hopefully they’ll be able to meet at Josie’s again to _have fun_ , instead of drowning their sorrows together.

Buck starts walking down the hallway, making his way to the staircase so he can go upstairs and pass the fuck out.

“Bucky?”

Bucky looks up and stumbles, and it’s very, very obvious that he’s drunk. Great. So much for subtlety.

“Yeah?” Bucky replies, praying to God that he’s not going to get a fucking lecture.

“You’re drunk,” Steve says, and, yep, that’s his lecture voice. Bucky’s going to get a fucking lecture, and there’s something like disapproval and disappointment in Steve’s eyes and it makes Bucky want to punch him.

Bucky laughs. “No shit. Also, water is wet, and the sky is blue,” he slurs. His answer seems to piss Steve off a little; he can’t help but feel at least a _little_ satisfaction in doing that.

Steve presses his lips together. “Who was that man out there?”

Bucky gives Steve a look through lowered eyelashes. “Guy I met,” he says suggestively. He doesn’t think of Foggy that way, really, but he wants to fuck with Steve right now, because he’s an asshole and he wishes that Steve would look at him the way he looks at Peggy, he wishes that Steve would just—

Steve grits his teeth, looks like he’s about to say something and then changes his mind last second. Bucky thinks he might look jealous, maybe, but Bucky’s drunk so he figures it’s the alcohol giving him ideas. 

“So this is where you’ve been all day? Drinking yourself into a stupor?” Steve says flippantly. He starts walking down the hallway, Bucky stumbling behind to keep up.

Bucky narrows his eyes. “Okay— _what_ the fuck,” he asks. “I was just having fun. Am I not allowed to do that? Should I get your permission next time, Your Highness?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Steve says levelly. “You leave without a damn word and then you show up here at two in the morning smelling like whiskey? What the hell is that? What did you— _why_ did you do that?”

“For shits and giggles,” Bucky replies, just to piss him off.

“Would you take something seriously for once?” Steve shouts all of a sudden, pulling them both to a stop. His loud tone surprises Bucky, and that’s the exact second that he starts to get angry back. The fun and novelty of ribbing Steve wears off, and they’re just standing in the middle of the hallway near the staircase, arguing.

“You don’t think I take things seriously?” Even if Bucky’s drunk, he’s still sober enough to feel the sting of that comment.

Steve throws up his hands. “You bailed on me today. You didn’t want to work yesterday, and you were goofing off the day before that.”

“ _Goofing off_?” Bucky grits his teeth, lips pulling back. “Fuck you, Steve,” he growls. “I’ve been working my ass off to learn, to—to _help_ you, and you still don’t fucking appreciate that?”

“How am I supposed to _trust_ you, Bucky, if you don’t even show up to when we’ve agreed to?” Steve shoots back.

“How am I supposed to trust _you,_ when I know jack shit about you?” The louder Bucky gets, the harder it is for him to keep from slurring his words together. He mentally berates himself for drinking so much, but he also knows that if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have the balls to fuck with Steve right now.

“What?” Steve sputters.

“Yeah, _Steve_ ,” Bucky slurs, and he’s just getting warmed up, but the floodgates are open now. “I told you, I told you _everything_ about myself, every last _fucking_ detail of my stupid sob story and you just—I barely know more about you than your fucking name. You won’t even tell me where you work, for fuck’s sake, you just—you won’t talk about it, you won’t tell me what you do, and how the fuck is that supposed to make me trust you? After everything I told you about me, you expect me to fuckin’, fuckin’ put my trust in you? What the fuck is that?

“You don’t talk about your family or your fucking _friends_ —Peggy fuckin’ Carter is the closest I ever got to learning anything new about you. You don’t trust me. You don’t _trust_ me and you’re just—and you know what the worst thing about this all is?” he says, unable to get his thoughts straight in his head. His mind is swirling and he doesn’t know how to keep it all together, jumping quickly from one thought to the next. “You know what the worst thing is? It’s—it’s that, you’ve given me _no_ fucking reason to trust you but I still _do. And why?_ Because you’re my witch? Fuckin’— _bullshit_. How fucked up is that? How fucked up is that?” he repeats.

He laughs humorlessly. “It’s like—why—you won’t let me _in_. It’s like you don’t want to even be my friend. You don’t—don’t even. And I just. I.” He stops then, because he knows he’s said too much and he’s gonna fucking start _crying_. The thing is, though, is that the situation is worse than what he’s said—it’s not just that Steve doesn’t like him, doesn’t trust him, it’s that Bucky likes Steve so much—he wants to be with Steve, he wants to kiss him and for Steve to be happy, but Bucky doesn’t know how to do that when Steve won’t let him in. Bucky just—he gives, but still Steve won’t give back.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly. The anger is gone, replaced with something that looks like regret and sadness, and Bucky just can’t handle that right now.

“I gotta go,” he says suddenly. “I’m gonna go. Upstairs.”

“Bucky, wait.”

He doesn’t listen, though, just turns his back and tries to make his way up the staircase. He goes upstairs, an affair that takes several long minutes. He gets to his room and opens the door, making his way into this room and undressing. He throws all his clothes on the floor, not bothering to pick them up. He puts on his pajamas, drunk and upset, wanting nothing more than to crawl under the covers and never come out.

He was having such a nice night and then—he had to come back and get into a fucking fight with Steve. Like, yes, he understands that he probably should have talked to Steve and explained where he was when he wouldn’t answer. But that doesn’t give Steve the right to make it _personal_. 

Fuck. Now he’s upset. 

There’s a knock on the door. For a moment, Bucky is thinking of just telling Steve to go away. He knows Steve probably would. But instead he finds himself going to the door and pulling it open. Steve comes inside silently when Bucky turns away, not saying anything. He’s crying frustrated tears, not meaning to, but he doesn’t want Steve to see.

He sits on the bed and waits for Steve to say something.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers. Bucky remains silent, so he goes on to say, “I _do_ like you, Bucky. I want you around. I want to be your friend.”

“But you don’t trust me,” he says.

“I didn’t say that,” Steve says meekly.

He turns over in his bed so he can make eye contact with Steve, who’s still standing over him. “So…?” he prompts.

There’s a long pause while Steve deliberates his answer. Just when Bucky is about to snap at him, Steve starts talking. “I… do. Trust you. But—hey, don’t tune me out yet,” he says when he hears Bucky scoff and start to turn away. “I _do_ trust you, but I can’t tell you about my job. I just can’t—it’s nothing to do with you. It’s… I can’t drag you into it. It’s against my contract. And you… you deserve better than to be pulled into all my bullshit.”

There’s another long silence while Bucky thinks about what to say to that. He just draws a blank. “Okay,” Bucky says finally.

“Okay? Okay, what?” Steve asks.

“Just, ‘okay,’” Bucky says, rubbing his eyes, trying to push down the frustration. “I want to sleep, Steve.”

“Okay. I mean, alright,” he stammers. “I’ll leave you alone. If you—in the morning, if you have a bad hangover, I know a cure, if you want.”

“Yeah. Fine,” Bucky mumbles. Half of him wishes that he got drunk enough to forget that any of this happened, but he knows he’s not. He hates alcohol. 


	8. Past Lives (Pt. 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so as you can all see, this work is the first part of a series that I've titled "Necessary Elements." This is going to be the first "book" in a trilogy of works, so I'm just letting you guys know what's to come in the next few months. I'm going to update this work once a week; so far I've gotten about 25,000 words in this story, but I've got the rest of the series planned out. Hope you all decide to stay along for the ride!

> **134 DAYS BEFORE**

Bucky pads down the stairs the next morning, hair messy and shirt rumpled. The hangover that he woke up with this morning kinda hurt, but it wasn’t enough to make him lie there in bed so he got up when his stomach finally rumbled at him. He hears Steve clattering about in the kitchen, and for a second he pauses. He remembers last night; his goddamn dog-metabolism made it so that the alcohol was out of his system quickly, so yeah—he remembers. Then he decides that he might as well face the problem anyway. It’s not like he can avoid Steve forever. They live together.

So he makes his way to the kitchen, where Steve is sitting at the breakfast bar and eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. This would usually be a point in time where Bucky makes some comment about Steve being Irish, but instead he pads over to the pantry, picks out a cereal at random and goes to grab a bowl.

Once he’s finished preparing his breakfast of champions, he plops himself into a chair far away—but not _too_ far away—from Steve, and is about to start in when Steve speaks, startling him.

“We need to start training again,” Steve says. “You didn’t practice at all while I was gone, and you haven’t practiced the last week. You need to keep training or you’re gonna regress.”

Bucky wants to say that he doesn’t see the problem with that, but knows that it’ll only upset Steve, so he keeps his comment to himself.

“Okay,” Bucky says. “After breakfast, then.”

They eat together in silence. Steve can probably tell that Bucky remembers their fight last night, considering his icy behavior. But Steve doesn’t snap at him, doesn’t even take the bait, just eats like this is a normal morning and nothing’s wrong, which ticks Bucky the fuck off because part of him is looking for a fight. Part of him wants to scream and fight and acknowledge that there’s a shift in the air, that things are different now.

But Steve just stands up after he’s finished his meal, gathers his dishes and drops them into the sink.

“Meet me downstairs,” he says, and passes Bucky where he’s sitting at the table and goes to the door that leads to the basement.

Bucky’s stomach drops. They’ve never trained in the basement before—most of the time, they just go to the library in the front hall and train there. If they’re going downstairs, that probably means that Steve has something different in mind.

Suddenly, Bucky’s not so hungry anymore. He gets up and dumps his half-eaten breakfast down the sink and cleans the dishes that he just used, to procrastinate. Then he slowly makes his way downstairs, taking his time on the steps.

Bucky hasn’t really been in the basement before. He’s gone down there once when he was new to the house but hasn’t been down there since. He saw that it was mostly an expanse of empty space, save for the table where Steve’s supplies for making potions are. He also knows that’s where he and Peggy were camping out when she was here. Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to be around today.

When Bucky goes down there now, he sees a punching bag hanging from a hook in the ceiling and a large mat covering an expanse of the floor. Steve’s standing by his table, looking up at Bucky as he makes his way downstairs.

“Where did this all come from?” Bucky asks, scanning the room in disbelief.

Steve smiles. “I had it locked up in my room upstairs. C’mon.”

Bucky wants to vomit in a way that has nothing to do with his hangover. He trudges down the stairs, stomach churning.

When Bucky makes it to the bottom of the stairs, Steve holds up a roll of gauze.

“Wrap your hands,” he says.

Bucky looks at him in confusion, taking the gauze from Steve’s hands and unrolling it some.

“I’m gonna teach you how to defend yourself.” Steve watches as Bucky unrolls the gauze and starts wrapping it around his hands. He doesn’t know how to do it—he’s seen people do this, of course, but he’s never had to do it himself. Eventually Steve gets tired of watching him struggle and takes the gauze from Bucky’s hand and starts wrapping them himself.

While he does it, he gives Bucky clear instructions, asking if Bucky understands. Bucky says yes, but in reality he’s not paying even a little bit of attention, just watching Steve’s face as he concentrates. His fingertips brush over Bucky’s skin and he has to stifle a shiver.

“Why are we…?” Bucky asks, looking up as Steve starts to wrap his other hand.

Steve shrugs. “Because I think you should learn how. You should be safe.”

Bucky nods, waiting for Steve to finish wrapping his knuckles. When he finishes, Steve gestures for Bucky to get on the mat.

“Okay,” Steve says. “First things first.” He steps around Bucky, poking and prodding him into a defensive position. He moves Bucky’s feet apart, makes him raise his hands and arms, guides his legs, shoulders, and hips into place.

Once that’s finished, he asks, “You know how to throw a decent punch?”

“I guess,” Bucky says.

Steve holds up his hands, palm out and open wide. “Hit my hand.”

Bucky curls his hands into fists and takes a swing at Steve’s left hand, fist colliding with the skin of his palm.

Steve shrugs. “Not bad,” he says. “But your thumb shouldn’t be there, on the side of your fist. It needs to be curled right here.” He takes Bucky’s hand, taking his thumb from the side of his fist and curling it below his knuckles, in between his index and middle finger. “There you go. You could break your thumb if you had it the other way, or inside your fist.” He holds up his hands again. “Do it again.”

Bucky nods and punches Steve’s other hand this time.

“You’re hitting with your front two knuckles, which is good,” Steve notices. “Don’t ever hit with the flat of your hand. One more time.”

Bucky grits his teeth and punches Steve’s hand one last time. Steve nods and says, “Okay. Now, if you’re ever in a fight, the best places to hit the person are the middle line.” He takes one of his hands and draws a line in the air from his nose straight down to his belly button. “Hit the nose, the throat, solar plexus, stomach, or crotch.” One side of his mouth quirks up. “Those are gonna hurt the most. Other than that, try to get their knees, their eyes, or their ears.”

Bucky grits his teeth and says, “Steve, what’s this about?” He drops his defensive stance, relaxing his posture and letting his hands fall to his sides.

The man sighs, like _Bucky_ is the one being insufferable. “Bucky… I told you. You need to know this in case you get into a fight.”

“Okay, well, I’m not doing this,” he snaps, moving over to the table where Steve’s potion-making supplies are. He grabs one of the two water bottles that Steve had brought down and cracks the seal, leaning against the table. “I’ll be just fine on my own. I’ve handled myself just fine before.”

“Bucky, please. You need to learn how to do this. You need to trust me,” Steve says, and Bucky thinks he hears a mixture of disappointment and hurt on his face.

Steve’s words open a just-healing wound. All the events from yesterday rush back to him, and Bucky just scoffs and says, “ _Trust_ you, huh? Trust _you_?”

Now there’s definitely hurt on Steve’s face. Bucky almost regrets it, but is he really wrong? No.

Steve exhales a heavy breath and crosses his arms over his chest. The room is silent, the air charged with electricity. Finally, he nods a little to himself and says, “My mother’s name was Sarah.”

Bucky looks up from his spot on the floor. “What?” he asks, confused.

“And my father’s name was Joseph,” Steve continues, like Bucky hadn’t even said anything. He takes a slow step forward. “He died before I ever got to know him, though.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just stands there and looks at his feet. He can’t think of anything to say, but Steve eventually saves him the trouble and says, “I’ve lived in Brooklyn my entire life. I grew up here. I was born here. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m bisexual. I almost got married when I was twenty—to Peggy. We both decided that we weren’t in love with each other, though.”

Another step forward.

“I like to paint. And draw. I don’t suck at it. But, and I don’t know if you remember last night, but _you_ ,” he says, poking Bucky in the chest with his index finger, “you said that I don’t like you. You’re wrong, Bucky—you’re actually one of the best friends I’ve had in years. I like you a lot, Bucky. And I’m glad I found you.”

Bucky feels a blush starting in his cheeks. He looks down at his hands in shame, unable to meet Steve’s eyes.

“Steve…”

“My favorite color is red,” Steve continues softly, when Bucky doesn’t add anything. He seems to be losing steam, slowing down his responses, but he still takes another step towards him. They’re so close now—only a foot or so apart. “I was nearly overjoyed when you said that your familiar form is a dog, because I’m a dog person.” He smiles sheepishly. “Is that a bad thing to say?”

Bucky opens his mouth and shuts it, and then chokes out, “No, it’s fine.”

Steve nods, biting his lip. “I’m still not telling you about my job,” he says pointedly, yet still gently. “I’m sorry.”

He reaches forward and grabs the water bottle from Bucky’s hands, not breaking eye-contact. He takes a drink, right there in front of him, throat working to swallow, and Bucky feels a strange mixture of guilt, arousal, and fear.

Steve takes the bottle from his lips and offers it to Bucky, who just shakes his head minutely.

“Is that good enough?” Steve asks softly. “Can you trust me, now?”

Bucky’s still trying to comprehend what the hell just happened. When it finally clicks, he buries his head in his hands to hide the blush on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I feel like such an asshole,” he mutters into his palms.

“Don’t,” Steve says—commands, really. He puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, shaking it just a little to get him to stop hiding. “You were right. You’re my friend and I trust you. You deserve to know about me, especially if I know so much about you.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat and nods. “Just answer me this,” he says eventually, looking up. “What you’re doing, your job. It isn’t illegal, right?”

Steve laughs. It’s a beautiful, golden sound. “No, Buck,” he answers. “Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” He turns his head, avoids Steve’s eyes. They sit in silence for a good thirty seconds.

“C’mon,” Steve says. He clears his throat, holds his hand out for Bucky to take. “Let’s try again.”

 

An hour later, Steve lets him take a break from defense fighting. He sits down on one of the chairs that Steve has by the table, grabbing the open water bottle and chugging down most of its contents.

“Slow down,” Steve says, smiling at Bucky as he takes a gasping breath.

“Jesus,” Bucky says, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. “Fuck.”

“Ready to move on?” Steve asks.

“Move on?” Bucky sputters. “As in, to something new, now? We aren’t—we aren’t _done_?”

Steve laughs. “I was gonna try to see if you could change into your familiar form now,” he says. “I knew you wouldn’t want to do self-defense training if I’d made change into your familiar form first.”

Bucky just stares at him, because he can’t believe that Steve would fucking do this. He pushes Bucky hard, and while he half-hates that, he’s flattered to know that Steve thinks he can actually handle so much.

So instead of giving up, he just sighs and stands up. “Okay. Might as well. I’m gonna be hurting tomorrow either way.”

Steve grins at him. “Good. We’ll go upstairs afterwards, get some lunch.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky grumbles. “Just go already, Rogers.”

“Okay,” Steve says, as Bucky clambers to his feet. He sets the water bottle on the table behind him and steps back onto the training mat.

Bucky cracks his back and shakes his arms out, trying to loosen his muscles. Steve told him that the best results come when he’s the most relaxed, the most focused.

“Sit down,” Steve says.

Bucky looks up at him in confusion—most of the time, Steve tries to get him to focus when he’s in a standing position, because it’s more realistic that he’d would transform in that position.

“Just do it,” Steve says, a teasing smile on his lips. “We’ll work up to standing and changing, okay? It’ll be easier for you to relax like this.”

Bucky shrugs and says, “Alright,” and sits down on the mat.

“Trying to transform is like meditation,” Steve says. “Close your eyes, keep your back straight. Think about your breathing. When you’re completely relaxed, think about the wall in your mind and what you can do to bring it down. You got that?”

Bucky’s eyes slip closed and he nods.

“Repeat it back to me,” Steve requests.

“I have to relax and think about the wall in my mind so I can get rid of it.”

“Good,” Steve says. Bucky can hear the smile in his voice.

Bucky crosses his legs and rests his hands on his knees. He sits up straight but tries not to tense up, and when he’s satisfied with his posture, he works on his breathing.

In, out.

In, out.

He counts his breaths, one by one. Once he’s counted up to twenty-one sets of breath, he feels relaxed enough to settle into his mind and imagine the wall.

The wall is… difficult. It’s been in his head so long that it’s almost like he could reach out and physically tough it.

He can’t understand why he can’t get past it, why he can’t break it down. Bucky put up to wall to stop him from transforming at a time where it wasn’t safe. Now it’s safe to do that—why won’t the wall just come down? He doesn’t want it up anymore, why won’t it—why can’t he just…

He thinks again. Maybe he doesn’t have to break the wall. Maybe he just has to climb over it. He doesn’t have to get rid of the wall, he just—he just has to get a ladder. He feels his hands tighten where they grip his knee. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, why is he having so much trouble with this, why doesn’t he know what’s going on _inside his own head_ —

“Bucky, Bucky, _stop_ ,” Steve’s voice says. Bucky snaps out of his trance, opens his eyes and looks up at Steve.

He realizes how heavily he’s breathing, how sweaty he is and how angry he feels now. His chest heaves and his jaw is tense. He feels like if he gritted his teeth any harder that they would break.

“I want to stop,” Bucky says. He doesn’t mean to be this angry towards Steve, because it’s not his fault, but Bucky feels like he can’t control himself. He can’t control his most basic function as a familiar. He’s just useless.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, kneeling down to Bucky’s eye-level. He looks genuinely concerned. “You were doing so well for the first few minutes. You were great.”

“I want to stop,” Buck repeats.

Steve shakes his head. “Why are you having so much difficulty, Bucky?”

Bucky shakes his head, trying to get his breathing under control. He averts his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Steve, but he’s not having that.

“I’m weak,” he answers finally.

“Buck,” Steve says softly, “you _aren’t_ weak. No one thinks you’re weak.”

Bucky laughs. “Tell society that,” he says, voice rising in hysterics. “ _They_ think I’m weak. They think I’m some—some _born_ assistant to a witch. That I’m some bitch that can’t take of myself.”

“You aren’t that,” Steve says.

“Well, they fucking think so.” He pulls his knees up to his chest. “The guys that we met at the bar thought that. They thought that. Everyone thinks that.”

“They’re wrong, Bucky,” Steve says gently. He looks like he’s debating something for a moment but in the end he just looks back up and meets Bucky’s eyes.

“Are they, though?” he shoots back. “I’m here to give up my powers so some witch can use it. That’s what my familiar form is. It’s just a fucking physical representation of how I’m here to give some asshole’s magic a little push because that’s all I’m good for. No offense.”

Steve just shakes his head. “You’ve got it wrong,” he says softly. “You’re not giving up your powers. You’re not giving up anything.”

Bucky scoffs. “How would you know? You don’t know what it feels like, to be born in this body,” he spits. “Being a familiar is like giving up the rights to your own body forever. Other people think they own you because you’re a piece missing from the whole set. That’s why I repressed this for so long, Steve, because if I didn’t know how, then maybe people would leave me be. I wouldn’t have to give myself up to every asshole witch who walks down the street and thinks they’re entitled to my abilities.”

Steve brings his hand up and grips Bucky’s shoulder tightly. “Bucky, listen to me. It’s not a power surrender. It’s a power exchange.” He won’t break eye-contact with him, so Bucky looks away first. “Look at me. Bucky, look—you’re not making yourself weak to make your witch stronger. We’re working _together_ , letting energy flow through us both, to make us even more powerful together than we could ever be alone.”

Steve smiles a little, so small and sad that it provokes tears into Bucky’s eyes. He wipes them away hastily, fighting the urge to close his eyes or turn away.

“I know I don’t know exactly what it’s like for you,” he whispers. “I know that maybe I’ll never understand what exactly you’ve gone through.” And now Bucky’s in _real_ danger of crying, sniffling and blinking rapidly to battle it off. “Witches try to make themselves out to be independent beings with familiars as their sidekicks, but we need you just like you need us, Buck. Without you, we aren’t really complete.”

He doesn’t know what to say, but after a long moment, Steve says, “I want you to be safe. I want you to defend yourself. I know that you can hold your own in your human form, but you’d be much safer if you knew how to change into your familiar form. You could exercise magic and defend yourself. It would be better for you. And it’d be better if, in that human form, you could know the basics.

“I know you can do this, Buck. I know it’s hard. But you’re stronger than this wall.” Steve stares at him intently until Bucky wipes away the tears with his sleeve and nods.

“Fine. One more time,” he mumbles.

Steve grins. “That’s right,” he says. His skin feels cold when Steve takes his hand from Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky does it again, with Steve’s words in mind. He’s not weak, he’s not—he’s strong enough to be his own person. His entire life, he’s chosen to be on his own. That’s a pretty fucking strong thing to do. But even now, he’s not weak for accepting Steve’s help, especially when Steve is just as stubborn as Bucky and refuses to not help him.

He exhales all the black smoke that’s been clouding his lungs. All the dumb shit that people have said to him in the past—they lit a match and shoved it down his throat and he let them, because he let their negativity get to him. He let it build up inside him. But not anymore. Not when Steve believes in him. He can’t let Steve down.

Bucky feels hot all over, but he’s just sitting there. Sweat dots his forehead, rolls down his temples, but he ignores it.

His skin prickles. Every nerve comes alive with sensation—neither a good feeling nor a bad one. Every pore seems to open and breathe—his blood is boiling but he can’t let go of this feeling. He thinks he remembers this. He thinks he remembers this feeling, he—

—opens his eyes.

“Bucky,” Steve breathes. He smiles and laughs breathlessly. “You did it.”


	9. Gauze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing last week's chapter. But considering it was finals week, I'm sure you'll all find it within your hearts to forgive me. 
> 
> This chapter got pretty long for me but there was no good place to break it up, so you have an extra-long read this time around. Congrats. I also barely proofread it. Mistakes to be fixed later. 
> 
> There's a bit of the story coming up that may potentially squick/trigger you. I don't think it's too bad, but then again, I'm not you. [Hover for spoilers.](x)

> **101 DAYS BEFORE**

  
His familiar form takes some getting used to. He’s spent so little time in this form that it feels like he doesn’t belong in the skin he’s in. Feels a little stronger, and lighter, and lither. But still strange.

Bucky’s sight in this body is like that of a human’s—he can see in colors, but his sense of smell is heightened. While he can’t communicate with Steve in words, per se, Steve does a good job of sensing how Bucky feels.

It just feels strange in this body—all sinewy muscles and fur. Steve smirks the first time he sees Bucky and tells him that his ears are too big for his head. Bucky just huffs and folds himself into a sitting position.

“Seriously, Buck, it’s like you have bat wings taped to your head.”

 _I hate you so much_ , Bucky thinks.

There’s also the underlying feeling of magic, the warm, glittering feeling of it spreading through him like a drop of ink in water. It makes him feel like, for the first time in a long time, that he’ll be able to handle whatever is thrown at him. He feels… powerful.

But, of course, not everything is perfect.

The first major problem that arises is that Bucky doesn’t know how to change back into his human form. He doesn’t have a damn clue, really. He spent all this time paying attention to transforming into his familiar form that he neither has the energy to change back into his human form, nor does he possess the knowledge to.

This, Steve thinks is hilarious.

The second issue is that being in this form is awakening all sorts of dormant magic inside of him, and it’s a little difficult to keep it contained. It’s like he’s a kid again, just coming into his powers, and glasses are spontaneously shattering, or electrical power outages happening (usually just in one room, but in several cases the entire _house_ , which Steve wasn’t happy about).

But the other things, Steve tells him not to worry about. The biggest problem on Bucky’s mind is that he can’t change back into his human self without wearing himself completely out.

“Sleeping will help,” Steve tells him, a smirk on his face. “You’ll relax enough that you’ll probably change back in your sleep.”

And, of course, Steve is right. Every time Bucky goes to sleep in his familiar form, he wakes up human.

There are good things, too, of course.

Steve is getting more powerful, also. Being near another witch or familiar for a long period of time usually heightens a magic being’s abilities, but after being exposed for so long, Steve’s potions are improving, his spells are lasting longer, his magic just more intense in general.

It doesn’t stop him from showing up to the house bloody after a week-long absence due to his job, but he’s still improving.

 

The days fly by—Steve and Bucky practice daily, and Steve trains Bucky until Bucky’s a relatively good fighter. He’s not sure when he’ll ever need to use these skills, because he doesn’t really leave the brownstone unless he’s meeting Foggy at the bar in Hell’s Kitchen. There, he meets Foggy’s other friends—Karen, a human girl, who is tall, with long legs and hair that’s more yellow than blonde, like a lemon.

Matt, on the other hand, has perpetual five o’clock shadow and is almost always sporting a bruise or a cut on his face. When he smiles, which is rare, his cheeks dimple. He’s a witch, too—a Seer, a witch who can tell the future. As a result of his Sight, Matt is blind, but that doesn’t stop him from bustling around as if it’s no issue.

Bucky tries, for Foggy’s sake, to not hit on either of his friends. It’s a difficult task, but he manages.

After a long night out with Foggy and his other friends, Bucky makes his way to the kitchen. It’s nearly noon, but he’s just woken up, and when he enters through the doorway, Steve looks up from where he’s preparing his own lunch.

“Look who it is,” Steve quips, smiling, as he watches Bucky make his way down the staircase and into the kitchen. “Back from the dead.”

“Shut up,” Bucky says, grinning.

Things between him and Steve have been much better, much less tense since Steve told Bucky about himself. Knowing about Steve, and knowing that he can ask more about Steve, feels like powerful knowledge to him.

“Did you see this?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks up. Steve is staring at the TV screen, a deep frown curling the corner of his mouth. He turns from Steve to the TV.

The TV is on mute, but the screen shows a news channel. The shot is of a red-haired man at a podium, speaking and gesturing with his hands. Bucky recognizes him immediately.

The caption on the screen reads: _**Senator Pierce campaigns for new preemptive elimination bill,"Project Insight."**_

An uneasy feeling settles in Bucky’s stomach. Alexander Pierce was a politician like Bucky’s father—the two met and could never seem to get along.

“I know that guy,” Bucky says. “He came to my father’s funeral.”

Steve turns around and looks at him. “What’s he like?”

Bucky shrugs. “He gives me a weird feeling.”

Steve scoffs. “I get that.” He shakes his head and grabs the remote, turning the TV off. “Anyway,” he continues in a lighter tone, “what do you want to do today? I’ll leave it up to you.”

“How gracious of you,” Bucky says dryly.

“I think so, too,” Steve returns with a sarcastic little smile.

Bucky grins. He likes Steve a lot, and it seems like Steve feels the same way—Bucky silently thanks the universe for the good luck he’s had to meet this man that not only is generous enough to give him a place to stay, but to put up with all his sarcastic bullshit, too.

There’s a little twinge in his soul that’s telling him that he can trust Steve. That, perhaps, Steve is one of the only people he can trust. It’s strange, because he knows that he doesn’t know everything about Steve—maybe he never will know everything—but he knows that Steve will have his back. Steve is his witch. His True Bond. Bucky said it as a deflection to a legitimate question earlier, but the really does have to mean something. The universe wouldn’t just pair Bucky with this strange man for no reason.

There’s a niggling in the back of his head. _Maybe you can Bond with him officially,_ his brain provides.

Bucky shakes the thought out of his head before it can become something more. Bucky told himself that he’s not Bonding with anyone. The benefits don’t outweigh the risks in a situation like that. If Bucky dies, Steve will feel it. If Steve dies—which is actually a possibility (not that he will actually let himself think about it), considering Steve’s job—Bucky will feel it. A Bond is not for those wishing to fuck around—it’s serious business. The stitching of two souls together until they form one. If Steve dies, it will literally feel like his soul is ripping in half.

Still, he feels that hole in his chest where something is missing. He ignores it for now.

Bucky thinks about what he should do with Steve today. Really, he _has_ been improving on all fronts—even if he can’t change back from his familiar form just yet—but he doesn’t want to focus on that today. No.

“I think we should spar,” Bucky says, a little smirk playing on his lips.

“Really,” Steve says, smiling back. “Are you sure? I’m not going easy on you this time.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I beat you last time, Steve. Get over it. You weren’t going easy on me.”

“Maybe to an _amateur_ I wasn’t going easy,” Steve retorts playfully.

“Okay, we’re definitely sparring now,” he declares. “Get your ass in gear and meet me downstairs.”

He hears Steve’s laugh as he makes his way to the door leading to the basement. He grabs the gauze from the table and starts to wrap his hands. The two of them don’t bother with gloves like some fighters do. Steve says hand-wrapping is the best method anyway.

He ties the gauze around his thumb and starts looping it around his hand when Steve starts making his way down the stairs, no longer dressed in his pajamas. Bucky smiles at him and then goes back to focusing on his hands.

Bucky’s gotten good at fighting. Maybe not as good as Steve, but he’s definitely getting there. The moves come to him easily. He can just give into his instincts and let them take over, and he does just fine. Just fine.

After wrapping his hands, he gives the remaining gauze to Steve, who starts doing the same. Bucky rolls his shoulders to loosen his muscles. Steve finishes wrapping his hands in seconds, having years more experience than Buck.

“Ready?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods and squares himself into position, raising his hands defensively. He knows better by now than to to throw the first punch in a fight against Steve.

Indeed, Steve throws the first punch and they’re off.

Bucky has learned Steve’s moves by now. Whether he’s strong enough or quick enough to stop them, that’s another story. Bucky can punch fast and hard, but he’s heavy on his feet—something Steve tends to use to his advantage.  

“You’re getting good at this,” he says. He blocks another one of Bucky’s punches and rolls easily out of the way.

Fighting is like a dance more than not. The way they move their bodies together in sync—that’s art. A violent craft. The same blood and sweat goes in.

More often than not, sparring ends up not being as serious as it should be. That’s why Bucky likes to spar with Steve. The two end up laughing and giggling, and Bucky eventually taps out because Steve may fight dirty, but he plays even dirtier. He jabs Bucky in the sides. He tickles him. He uses his considerable strength to pin him down. Every time, without fail, this is what happens.

But there’s something different this time. Steve knocks out Bucky’s legs—which, in hindsight, he definitely should have seen coming—and knocks him to the ground. This is the point in time where Steve usually steps on Bucky’s chest to keep him from getting up, but this time, Bucky grabs Steve’s leg and sends him toppling down to the floor with him.

Steve gasps in surprise, falling down hard on his back. He groans, but makes it up quickly enough to grab Bucky’s arms. He struggles, but Steve’s stronger, of course, and it just makes it even more difficult to move when Steve climbs on top of him and straddles his legs.

Steve’s got his wrists pinned with both of his hands, a triumphant grin on his face. Both their chests rise and fall with rapid breaths, and suddenly Bucky is very aware of their position: Bucky, on his back, hands pinned above his head, and Steve resting his weight on Bucky’s thighs. Bucky puts up a minor struggle, and Steve laughs, but doesn’t release him.

“Can’t get away from me that easily,” Steve says.

Bucky’s breath rushes out of him. “I know,” he says softly.

There’s a moment in time when the world around Bucky seems to be immersed in water—everything around him slows, and he can’t hear as clearly as before. He’s completely zeroed-in on Steve’s face. He can’t see anything else.

Steve lurches forward a little, and then pulls back. His face is one of surprise and confusion, before he suddenly seems to come back to his senses.

He scrambles off of Bucky. “I’m, um—I’m gonna…”

“Yeah,” Bucky says distantly. He clears his throat awkwardly as Steve starts to unwrap his own hands. Before Bucky can even stand and start to unwrap his own hands, Steve is up the stairs and closing the basement door behind him.

Bucky stands here for ten minutes, trying to process what the _fuck_ just happened. For a second, he was _sure_ Steve was going to kiss him and then the guy just got up and ran off without even an attempt at a good excuse.

Now he’s down here alone, feeling like an asshole. He slowly starts to unwrap his hands, taking extra care with the gauze for no particular reason besides that he doesn’t want to go upstairs right away and have to talk to Steve about what just happened.

Once he’s finished, he trudges up the stairs and listens for a few seconds at the door to see if Steve is still out there. He can’t hear any movement, so he pushes through the door to see that the kitchen is, in fact, empty.

With a sigh, Bucky starts to make his way to the second floor so he can lock himself into his bedroom.

+++

It’s late at night; Bucky’s spent most of the day tucked away in his room, reading books and periodically sneaking downstairs to grab some food from the refrigerator.

He’s in the middle of his book when he hears a knock on his door, so soft that he’s not sure if it was real or not. But then it comes again, a little louder, and Bucky slides off his bed to answer it.

When he pulls open the door, Steve is standing very close, wringing his hands. He’s wearing different clothes from earlier, but not the sweatpants he usually sleeps in, despite it being nearly eleven at night.

“Um,” Steve says.

“Yeah?” Bucky prompts, voice soft, like Steve is an animal that he can scare away by raising his voice. Especially with what happened earlier, Bucky doesn’t want to frighten Steve off. They were just starting to become good friends.

“I’m gonna be gone this week,” Steve says. He looks down to his shoes. “I’ve got a work thing. I’ll be back in a week or so, though.”

“Oh,” Bucky says softly. Steve’s never told him personally that he’s going to be gone because of his job. Part of him wants to interrogate him, but he holds back and just says, “Okay. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Steve answers with a wince. “Really early.”

“Okay,” Bucky repeats. He clears his throat. “Well, uh. Get back safe, okay?”

Steve nods and gives him a weak smile. “I’ll try. Goodnight, Bucky.”

“Night, Steve,” Bucky says.

It’s too difficult to go to sleep; thoughts rage against the walls of his mind, snatching sleep from his grasp before he even began to conceptualize it. He waits until he hears the door open and shut in the early hours of the morning before he even closes his eyes.

+++

He wakes in the afternoon.

Bucky wonders why Steve felt that he had to personally tell Bucky that he was leaving. He’s never done it this way before—he’s always left a note. Hell, sometimes he doesn’t even do that. Sometimes he just sends Bucky a text telling him not to call that week or leaves a hasty voicemail that he’s already left.

A sick feeling settles into the pit of Bucky’s stomach. The way Steve stood, the way his tone sounded, it felt an awful lot like a swan song.

 

Weeks without Steve are always quiet. During weeks like this, Bucky finds himself spending more time at the bar in Hell’s Kitchen, but this time around is especially bad. He feels sick to his stomach with worry.

Well, he worries anyway when Steve’s gone. But with what Steve said to him, he can’t help but feel like something is really, really wrong.

Even Foggy and his friends take notice. Bucky waves them off, but Matt ends up cornering him later while Karen and Foggy shoot some pool. Matt slides into the stool next to him, and if Bucky weren’t totally enamored by Steve, he would be checking out Matt’s ass and staring at the way his thighs fill out his slacks. But he barely pays attention to the brunet until he asks Bucky what’s wrong.

“It’s just…” Bucky starts, but then he doesn’t know what to say. _Sorry I’m off, but I think my roommate might be in mortal danger and I have to sit here and wait for his will to process. You know, normal stuff._

“… roommate troubles,” he finishes lamely, and then takes a hasty sip of his drink as if he can wash down the taste of that stupid answer.

“Ah,” Matt says, smiling in a way that says, _You’re so full of shit, Barnes_. Thankfully, he doesn’t comment on it.

It’s been a week and still, Steve isn’t home. Days pass and suddenly it’s a week, and a half, and then infringing on two weeks. Bucky’s sure that he’s going to get a messenger at his door to tell Bucky that Steve’s dead any day now.

 

He’s awake and staring at the TV, not really watching it, just trying to bore himself to sleep, when he hears the door rattle.

He’s up and off the couch like a shot. Making his way to the front hallway, he gets there just in time to see his favorite 6-foot blond menace step over the threshold.

“Steve,” Bucky sighs in relief. He wants to hug him, but he stops himself in time, thinking that that might step over a few boundaries. “Fuck, you’re here. I thought…”

“Bucky,” Steve rasps. Steve steps forward and stumbles, but Bucky’s quick enough to grab him before he falls completely to the floor.

“Steve, what—”

And then he finally sees it.

It’s worse than usual. As bad as he’s ever seen him. It’s not like the first time that Bucky had to patch Steve up. No. Before, he just had scrapes and blackened eyes.

Steve’s jacket is in tatters, caked in dry blood, and his knuckles are scraped raw and his leg is either sprained or broken completely. His jeans are ripped from shin to thigh on the left leg, and torn at the knee on the right. Bucky can’t see any bruises for all the blood on his skin, but he can guess that Steve’s absolutely black and blue.

“Please,” Steve groans. “Hurts, _hurts_.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Bucky says. He tries to keep the panic from creeping into his voice. “C’mon, Stevie, let’s get you patched up.”

On his way to the living room, Bucky realizes that he wouldn’t even be able to see where the wounds are. Fuck.

He makes a quick decision, turning Steve around so they can get up the stairs. “Okay, I’m gonna need you to wash up,” Bucky says, gritting his teeth as he helps Steve up the stairs, supporting more than half the weight. “Okay? I can’t see your cuts like this, you need to wash off the blood.”

Steve just grunts as he tries to make it up the stairs only using his uninjured leg. When that doesn’t work, he moves to limping painfully up the rest of the way.

Bucky takes Steve to his room, knowing that trying to make it to Steve’s room would be a pain in the ass. Besides, Bucky hasn’t even been in there before.

He helps Steve strip down to his underwear. He helps him step into the shower and turns the water on lukewarm, knowing that hot water would aggravate the wounds. The blood washes off fairly easily, but he can see Steve wincing in pain when the water runs over a wound that hasn’t scabbed over yet. Steve grabs onto the sides of the shower, holding on for dear life so that he doesn’t put weight on the injured leg.

After Steve is relatively clean, Bucky helps him out of the shower and dumps him gently onto his bed.

“I need to get the potions kit,” Bucky tells him. “I’ll be right back. Dry off, okay?”

Steve nods curtly and Bucky turns and quickly runs downstairs to grab the potions kit that they usually use when Steve comes home all beaten-up.

When Bucky gets back up to his room, Steve is sitting on the edge of his bed in wet boxers that he wore in the shower, blood starting to seep out of the cuts and scrapes that pepper his body. They’re everywhere—not just the face, back, and chest like they usually are. There are cuts on his shins, on his thighs, on his shoulders and arms. His knees, his sides—even a few lesser ones on his neck. Bucky feels his stomach drop straight to the floor.

He kneels down in front of Steve and feels the leg that caused his limp. He presses on the skin and bone with gentle fingers and doesn’t feel a break, so he decides that it must be sprained. Steve doesn’t have a potion for that, so he leaves it be and starts covering the wounds in the various salves and liquids that will stop the bleeding and the bruising. Neither say a word.

Steve’s job is killing him. Literally killing him. There are only so many salves and potions a person can use on themself before it’s not enough anymore. Eventually Steve is going to show up at home to get patched up, and he’ll have lost too much blood already. He’ll have a broken bone or an infected wound. He’ll be bleeding internally or cut in a major artery.

He can’t see Steve come home like this anymore. Not when he can help it. It’s not his place to tell Steve to quit.

“What happened?” Bucky asks, looking up to meet Steve’s eyes, finally.

Steve just stays quiet. Of course. His job.

“You usually don’t get this hurt,” Bucky mutters. “You usually just have a few cuts and scrapes. Maybe some burns.”

Steve looks away, unable to meet the intensity of Bucky’s gaze.

“They were stronger than you? They were, weren’t they?” he asks. Steve still doesn’t answer.

“Steve,” Bucky says, starting to get irritated. “You could’ve died. What if you’d bled out before you got here? What if you’d passed out on the way here and you died out there?”

“I’m not quitting, if that’s what you’re trying to tell me,” Steve says. The sound of his voice surprises Bucky, but his words make him want to explode.

“How can you say that when you’re sitting here, on my bed, bleeding into my sheets?”

“I’m not doing it, Bucky. And you have no right to tell me what to do.” His voice and eyes are stone cold, hardened and mean. He seems to think that the conversation is over, but Bucky isn’t through.

“ _You’re_ not the one who has to patch you up, Steve!” Bucky snaps. “You’re not the one who has to sit here and worry if you’re even going to come back alive. I may not know exactly what you do, but I know it’s dangerous. _Fatal_. Steve, please—”

“I think I’ll finish this job myself,” Steve interrupts.

Bucky’s so stunned that he just sits there, mouth dropping open. “What?”

Steve just takes the potions from Bucky’s hands and stacks them neatly in the box. He starts to get up when he realizes that his leg is fucked, and nearly falls back down on the bed.

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky snaps. He grabs the box out of Steve’s hands and gets back to the work he was already doing. Steve’s face is gray and dotted with sweat.

Bucky starts to work on a cut on Steve’s leg that is deep and clean. He puts a salve over it, but it doesn’t heal.

“It’s too deep,” Steve tells him once he sees the confusion on Bucky’s face. “You just need to wrap it.”

“I think it needs stitches if it’s too deep for your potion,” Bucky answers.

“No hospitals,” Steve says.

“Is that your fucking mantra?” Bucky grits his teeth and then sighs. “What about a Healer? I could get one to come to the house. They might have some potions or some shit that a doctor doesn’t. More private that way, too.”

Steve huffs. “A Healer will tell you the same thing,” he says, annoyance starting to creep back into his tone. “Just—come on.”

 

Again, Bucky finds that he just can’t fucking get to sleep.

Steve is in his room upstairs, for now. Bucky gave him a potion to help him sleep off the worst of the bruises. Some of them need to heal overnight, he said. They’re too deep for the potion to heal them instantly.

Bucky rolls over on his side and stares at the wall. Steve is upstairs with a bone bruise and sprained ankle and Bucky is just sitting here, doing nothing, because he’s fucking useless while Steve does so much.

Too much, really. Way too much. He’s going to kill himself if he’s not careful.

Bucky sits up straight in bed, because _fuck him sideways that’s what Steve was doing._ Steve said goodbye to him personally because he thought he was going to _fucking die._

There’s not a doubt in Bucky’s mind that that’s what Steve was doing. He was saying goodbye for the last time in case he didn’t make it.

Bucky scrubs his knuckles over his face. Fuck. He can’t do this anymore.

He throws the covers off of himself and toes into some of his shoes that are sitting by the bed. The witching supplies store down the street should still be open. He has some errands to run.

+++

In the morning, he’s so fucking tired that he can barely function right, but he has a good feeling in his chest now, a feeling that’s replaced the cold darkness that had gripped his heart when he saw Steve’s blood-covered face. He grabs the bag of supplies that he bought last night and makes his way to the kitchen, where he’s sure Steve is puttering about.

He comes downstairs and is greeted by the sight of a slightly-better looking Steve; most of the cuts on his face have healed, and some of the darker bruises are turning yellow, but he’s still worse for wear.

Bucky teeters with nervousness. He was pretty presumptuous, buying what he did, but he’s pretty confident that Steve will oblige.

Bucky walks into the kitchen and Steve’s eyes fall on the bag immediately.

“What’s that?” he asks. He limps to his usual chair and slides into it, taking a sip of his coffee once he’s sat down.

The bag feels like a million pounds, but Bucky turns it upside-down and dumps the supplies on the table unceremoniously.

Silk ropes, white chalk, and a ceremonial knife all tumble out onto the table. Steve looks at them once and then does a double take before staring up at Bucky with shock written all over his features.

It takes a long time for Bucky to actually find his voice.

“I think,” he says, then stops. His mouth is dry, he’s so nervous. “I think. I think, maybe, if you want—um, I think we could Bond. If you want.”

Steve just stares at him.

Bucky’s entire face flushes red. “I mean—if you don’t want, that’s fine, I just thought—”

“No,” Steve interrupts. “No, I’d—I’d love to, Bucky. Thank you. For trusting me.”

“Oh” is all Bucky is capable of saying.

The blond looks away, and Bucky’s heart falls at the reluctant look on Steve’s face. He says, “But, I. I can’t. I can’t accept.”

It feels like the breath in Bucky’s lungs was punched out of him, the way his chest hurts and the way he struggles to breathe. “What not?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper.

“Bucky,” Steve pleads. “When I first brought you here, maybe I would’ve said yes. But I can’t do that now. I can’t let you get hurt if I die.”

“It’ll hurt me either way if you die,” he says before he can think better of it.

Steve doesn’t even look fazed. “You don’t even know what I do and you’re willing to Bond with me,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t do this, Buck. My answer’s no.”

Bucky stares at Steve, anger starting to fill his lungs so he can’t breathe. “You thought you were going to die, didn’t you?” He doesn’t even try to not make it sound like an accusation. It is.

Steve looks up at him. “What?”

“You didn’t think you were going to make it back this time around, didn’t you? That’s why you told me personally that you were leaving. That was your goodbye to me, wasn’t it?” He spits the words out angrily, his hands in fists at his sides. Bucky’s hurt in the way that only Steve knows how to hurt him. He hurts from the fear of actually losing Steve—something he hadn’t thought possible before. He hurts from rejection. And he hurts from the astounding levels of frustration that Steve is able to needle out of him.

Steve just stares at him for a minute before saying, “Okay, fine. Yeah, I was kinda worried that I wouldn’t make it out this time. I was a little scared, so I said goodbye to you instead of leaving a note on the off-chance that if I didn’t survive, you’d have something more than a sticky note to remember me by.” Steve scowls at him, a frown creasing the corner of his mouth.

Bucky scowls right back at Steve, a deep frown on his lips. “You’re a dick, Steve.” _Also_ , he thinks, _that was a shitty goodbye._

“What does that have to do with anything?” Steve argues. “What does _me_ being worried about myself have to do with _you_ wanting to Bond?”

“Because I want you to be safe!” Bucky snaps. “I want you to be stronger so you don’t have to worry about dying. So you don’t have to show up at home with cuts and bruises and black eyes and road burn. So I don’t have to worry that you’re hurt. So I can just _know._ ”

Steve glares at him, but he thinks he sees his eyes soften just a little bit. “My answer’s no, Buck. Final answer. I’m sorry.”

Bucky straightens up and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Fine,” he says dismissively. He turns around and stalks back up to his room, feeling useless. His ears burn when he sees the ceremonial knife glinting against the tabletop when he makes his way up the stairs.


	10. Past Lives (Pt. 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I reusing chapter titles because I'm a creative writer, trying to connect parts of the story together, or because I'm lazy and don't want to come up with different ones? It's anyone's guess, really.

> **83 DAYS BEFORE**

“Look at that,” Foggy says.

He points to the TV in Josie’s bar with the same hand that’s holding his drink. Bucky looks away from his whiskey glass and up to the TV mounted on the wall. It’s a shot of Alexander Pierce at a podium. The caption below reads: **_Pierce announces presidential campaign_**.

Bucky gets a sick feeling in his stomach. “He’s going to win,” he declares, taking another swig from his glass.

“You think so?” Karen asks. She’s scowling at the screen, same as Bucky.

“I don’t like his politics, but yeah, I think so,” he says. “I don’t know why he needs to be President.”

Matt slides into the seat next to Buck with a sigh, his white cane in hand.

“What are we talking about?” he asks. He folds his cane and tucks it inside his pocket.

“Alexander Pierce is running for president,” Karen says.

“ _Seriously_?” Matt says. “That guy’s a dick.”

“Yeah, well, apparently some people don’t think so,” Foggy says. He waves Josie down from behind the counter and orders another beer. Matt places his order as well.

Bucky remains silent, lost in thought. Pierce was qualified, for sure — he had several terms in senate under his belt, was a good lawyer, went to a good school. Pierce wasn’t a dick, per se, like Matt suggested, but his politics were a bit on the radical side.

He gave Bucky a bad feeling.

Bucky just takes a sip of his drink, trying to loosen the knots in his stomach.

“Bucky? Hey.” Bucky looks over when he feels a hand shaking his shoulder. It’s Foggy, looking concerned. “You alright there, buddy?”

Bucky gives a wan smile and raises his drink. “Sorry. Got lost in my head there for a sec.”

“What’s on your mind?” Foggy asks, settling down into his seat. Bucky knows that when Foggy starts getting comfortable in the chairs that Bucky’s going to be spending a long night here. He sighs.

“‘Roommate troubles’?” Matt supplies with a quirk of his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up, Murdock,” Bucky says with a forced chuckle. Matt doesn’t know how right he is.

The four of them laugh at Bucky’s comment, but when the moment subsides they all look at him expectantly.

“Um,” he says, surprised at the fact that he has all their attention. He shifts in his seat. “I don’t—it’s complicated.”

“I’m not sure I can tell you,” he admits. “It’s. It’s kinda. Yeah.”

“You have such a way with words,” Foggy teases, and suddenly they fall back into their regular pattern, but Bucky doesn’t miss the way Karen’s eyes linger on him worriedly, or the way that Foggy keeps holding his shoulder.

It’s strange to Bucky, because even though he likes Steve so much, they fight so often it’s a little disconcerting. Bucky would blame it on himself, on his own insecurities, but he thinks that Steve’s a little broken, too. He just won’t tell Bucky what’s breaking him.

Well, Steve doesn’t exactly know the whole story, either.

They haven’t really talked since Bucky propositioned that they Bond. Bucky felt hurt, and rejected, but Steve refused to baby him just because his emotions were out of whack. They still trained. They still sparred. Just without the friendliness of before.

Bucky drinks a lot, perhaps more than he should. Usually he stops right when he’s lightly buzzed from the alcohol, but tonight he wants to get drunk.

“It’s Steve,” Bucky slurs to Foggy. “It’s Steve—he’s such a. He’s such a fuckin’ _dumbass_. Keeps gettin’ his ass beat… won’t let me help him…”

“I think someone’s had a little too much,” Karen murmurs with a little smile on her face. She puts her hand on Bucky’s shoulder, rubbing in slow, soothing circles, but Bucky barely notices.

“I love him,” he slurs. “I love him, but he—I love him.”

“I know, buddy,” Foggy mutters admonishingly. “C’mon, up you get.”

The last thing he remembers is Foggy and Matt pulling him off the stool and walking him to the door.

\---

Bucky was nineteen. Rebecca was twelve.

“I don’t have any money,” Bucky said to the woman. He bit his lip worriedly. This wouldn’t have been his first choice, but considering what happened the night before, Bucky was sure as hell _not_ capable of taking care of them both.

The woman looked kind enough. She _was_ kind enough, from what Bucky could tell. Her behavior from last night, and this morning shows that she’s a special kind of person. Bucky remembers that she was just starting to gray at her roots, she must’ve been forty or fifty.  The man was a little older—his salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper, and he constantly squinted his eyes when his glasses hung from the cord around his neck.

“It’s fine,” the man said in response to Bucky’s worrying, laying a hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said. “If ever.”

The wife looked up to her husband and then said, for both of them, “She’ll be in good hands.”

\---

The light hits his eyes, still closed even though he’s awake. The dream—or _memory_ , really—makes him pull the blankets closer to himself. He still feels the chill that had permanently settled over his bones. He always hated winter after that.

Bucky, still feeling cold from his memory, then sits up and rubs his eyes.

He doesn’t remember getting home last night. And, shit… he winces when he tries to sit up, his raging headache making itself known.

He never did get back to see Rebecca. She must be fourteen, fifteen by now. High school. He buries his head in his hands, trying to stop the tears from coming.

God, he’d missed _so much_.

That was the turning point. He was out on his own after that, no company, no one to help him through. The woman offered for him to stay behind, but he knew that he couldn’t do it. The witches would find him sooner or later, sniff him out. It was him they wanted, not Rebecca—at least, not until she was of legal Bonding age.

It hits him then. He’s spent all this time running from witches that wanted a piece of him, and then he finally meets Steve, and asks for him to Bond… and he’s turned down.

Steve is so _different_ , so _stubborn…_ and, apparently, just what Bucky needs.

He sighs and throws off the covers. He needs to talk to Steve.

 

He walks into the kitchen and decides to get right to the point: “I’m sorry,” Bucky says.

Steve stops what he’s doing and looks up. “What?”

“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks down at his sock-feet. “It was presumptuous of me to go out and get those things without asking you first if you even wanted to do it. It’s your decisions whether or not you want to Bond with me.” He laughs without humor, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. “I’m not really used to being turned down, is all. But that doesn’t excuse it.”

“Bucky.”

He looks up at the sound of Steve’s voice. Is it him, or do Steve’s eyes look a little shiny? The light streaming through the windows could be playing tricks with Bucky’s vision, but the little catch in Steve’s voice is too coincidental.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Steve says with a little smile. “Your heart was in the right place. I can definitely see why you’d want to help, after seeing me come in like that…” His expression darkens and he looks away for a second before saying, “But that’s exactly why I couldn’t do it. IF you had asked me a few months ago, I might’ve said yes. I’ve just gotten so desensitized to how violent things can get, but last week opened my eyes. I couldn’t put that kind of risk on you.” Steve finally looks back at him. “If I hurt, you hurt. I don’t want you to have to go through that.”

Bucky nods in understanding. “I get it,” he says.

Steve smiles, and when Bucky looks again, Steve’s eyes aren’t shiny anymore. Damn.

“And, um… after you told me what happened to you,” he murmurs, “I couldn’t be that person. I couldn’t do that to you. If we’re gonna Bond, it can’t be because you need me to be stronger, or for you to be stronger. It has to be because we both _want_ it.”

Bucky feels a little catch in his breath. He turns away, unable to meet Steve’s intense gaze. His chest feels tight.

“I’m gonna go train downstairs,” Steve says with a little, tentative smile. “Wanna come with me?”

+++

After training, Bucky lies on the couch in his familiar form as Steve flips idly through the channels. A part of Bucky wants to nose at Steve’s hands and goad him into scratching his head, which he’s done before (which led Steve to saying, “ _Really_ , Buck? _Really_?” and Bucky snapping back, “Shut _up_ , Steve, I was a fucking dog”).

He sits up and leans into the arm of the couch. This form is starting to feel a little better, even a bit more comfortable than his human form at times. The biggest perk of being a dog is that you don’t have to look for a chair to sit down. You can just sit down. _Anywhere_.

Bucky changes back into his human form — he can _do_ that now — and kicks his feet up on the shitty storage-truck-turned-coffee-table in front of him. 

“Is there anything in that thing?” Bucky asks suddenly, staring at the trunk. When he first moved here he snooped around and tried to see if it would open, but it wouldn’t. Back then, he was suspicious, but now he’s just curious.

“Yeah,” Steve says. Bucky notices how he doesn’t say anything else.

“For your job, then, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Bucky knows better than to press by now; while he can be stubborn, the only person in the world more stubborn than him is _Steve_. Crazy.

Bucky sees Steve glance over at him in his periphery, but keeps his focus on the TV in front of him. Eventually, Steve just looks back to the show and takes a sip of his beer.

 

There’s a knock on his bedroom door later that evening. Bucky looks up from the book he was reading. “It’s open,” he calls, sitting up in the bed and sliding so he can perch himself on the edge.

Steve cautiously makes his way inside, wringing his hands.

“Hey,” Bucky says, smiling. “What’s up?”

The look on Steve’s face makes the grin slip from Bucky’s lips. Steve’s mouth twists when he says, “I’m sorry, Bucky.” His voice is quiet—meek, even, which is definitely not a word that he thought he’d use to describe Steve ever.

Bucky’s eyebrows knit and he stands up, concern on his face. “About what?” he murmurs, taking a slow step forward.

“It was just… today. When we were talking.” He sighs before continuing, “Before, you were always angry about me and my job, and how I wouldn’t tell you. And then, I just… Today, when I wouldn’t tell you about the trunk. You didn’t even push me to tell you about it.”

“Well, yeah. That would’ve been pointless.” Bucky tries for a smile. “Been there, done that, Stevie. I’m not gonna bother you about it anymore.” His smile fades when he sees the look on Steve’s face. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m just… I don’t know.”

A frown twists Bucky’s lips. “That doesn’t help me, Steve.”

“I know, I’m just—” He sighs again. “I’m sad that you’ve gotten used to it, I guess. Me being so defensive over my job. Not letting you know. Not telling you the truth.”

“It’s fine, Steve.”

“It’s not fine. You deserve to know.”

Bucky’s breath catches. _He can’t possibly be thinking…_ “What are you saying?”

Steve pauses for a second before he starts backing up into the hallway. “C’mon. I need to show you something.”

Bucky follows Steve without a word, his heart pumping strangely against his ribs. Is this excitement? Or fear? He’s spent so much time hounding Steve for answers, but what will happen when he finally knows?

“Steve, whatever you’re about to show me…” Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder and pulls them gently to a stop. “It’s not _bad_ , right? Are you sure you trust me?”

Steve looks like he wants to throw his hands up. “Of course I trust you, Bucky. That’s what this entire thing is about.”

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t,” he mutters.

“Oh my God,” Steve says, looking up at the sky as if saying to God, _Can you believe this guy?_ “You go on this entire time about how I need to _trust you—_ ”

“Well, now that it’s happening, I’m a little freaked out, okay?” Bucky says defensively. “I just don’t want you to get in trouble, Stevie. I know your job is top secret shit.”

Steve sighs. “No. It’s fine. Come on, Buck.”

Steve walks into the living room, sits himself on the couch and pulls the shitty old trunk close. He puts his palm to the lock, muttering a spell. The trunk pops open, almost like it was eager to be unbolted. Steve swings the lid back all the way, and Bucky approaches the couch and trunk warily, eyeing the contents that Steve’s just taken out of the trunk.

“Sit down,” Steve tells him. Bucky sits next to him, looking at the things in the trunk.

It’s filled with paper. Files, photographs, legal documents. Steve leans in, grabs a small square of paper, and hands it to Bucky.

It’s a grainy picture of a scrawny boy with floppy blond hair. He stands shyly with his hands clasped behind him, and even with his eyes half-hidden by his hair, Bucky can tell that they’re a striking blue.

“Who’s this?” Bucky asks, not looking up from the photo.

“That,” Steve says, “is me.”

Bucky looks up at Steve confusedly. “As a kid?”

“No,” Steve says, sighing. “That was taken seven years ago.”

Bucky looks from the photo, to Steve, to the photo again. “What? No.” He squints again at the picture. The boy in the picture _does_ look like Steve, but it doesn’t make sense. If the picture was taken seven years ago, Steve would still be past puberty and growth spurts.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I’m not lying.”

It doesn’t seem possible. The boy in the photo is tiny and sickly—5’4” at most—and Steve is, well. Steve is the picture of perfect health. Bucky’s never even seen the guy catch a cold.

But, even Bucky has to admit that the faces are similar. Same bone structure, same shy smile, same blond hair, and—of course—same bright blue eyes.

Steve takes the photo back from Bucky’s hands. He stares at it for a long time before sighing. “I was sick as a child,” he murmurs. “I had a lot of health problems—asthma, heart palpitations, anemia, scoliosis, you name it. Every doctor I talked to didn’t think I’d live past my twenty-fifth birthday.”

He bites his lip, putting the photo back into the trunk, and taking out a file folder. “My ma wasn’t having any of that. She tried like hell to get all these treatments for me. Experimental medication, surgery, all that. But nothing was working. So she decided to do something about it herself. She was a witch like me.” Steve smiles a little to himself before continuing. “Day after day, she was working to find something to help me: a spell, a charm, a potion. Anything, really.”

He sighs again, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “She found something, finally.” He hands the file folder to Bucky, who opens it immediately. Inside are several pages of directions on how to make a potion. The words at the top of the page just say, simply, “The Serum.”

“She found a doctor named Erskine. He had a potion that he was trying out and wanted people that could be in need of it to test it out. She asked me and I volunteered.” He shrugs. “After a few doses of that, I started growing. My asthma didn’t bother me. My heart got stronger. I was getting healthier. So he gave us instructions on how to make it ourselves and told us to keep it between us, and for me to take weekly injections of it so I would stay the way I am.

“We didn’t think it was illegal,” Steve explains. “Erskine didn’t think so, at least. He kept his patients limited, but that was just because he didn’t want people who didn’t need it in his study. He didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Steve deflates at he continues his story, a frown starting to form on his face. “People got wind of his project and started flooding him with questions. He started thinking that maybe being public with his serum was a mistake. People started asking the effects of the potion. If it was permanent, what be the long-term effects… They were trying to figure out if it was just a potion to make people like me healthy, or if it was a step in the direction of a potion that could cause immortality. He gave me the instructions on how to make it, and then he was killed just a few days later.”

Bucky’s mind is reeling from his story, trying to put everything together. “Steve…”

Steve gives him a look that shuts Bucky right up. “I hid what I knew. My ma purged my name from all the records of Erskine’s findings. I joined the army, went on a few tours, came back… got offered a job at a special agency.”

It’s silent for a long moment, until Bucky realizes that Steve is done talking.

“What happened to your mom?” Bucky asks quietly.

Steve looks surprised, but he says, “She died near the end of my first tour with th army. Medical problems. She used to help me make the Serum, but Peggy helps me with that now. That’s why she was here a while ago. We made a big batch of it to keep me going for a while.

Bucky nods and then spends a moment thinking. “They don’t have to know that I know,” he whispers.

“Buck.” Steve’s voice is like that of a parent scolding a child, but Bucky won’t have any of it.

“I want to help you,” Bucky says. “Make the potion. The serum. Hell, just train me to make potions in general. I want to help.”

“Yeah?” Steve says warily, eyeing Bucky up and down.

“Yeah, well. If it’s something that’s keeping you healthy, then it’s something worth making.”

“Okay,” Steve says, smiling at Bucky’s response. “It won’t be as easy as it looks for me, though. It’s never as easy for familiars as it is witches.”

“I know,” Bucky says. Familiars could make potions and cast spells, but the process was usually more difficult and tumultuous. The same goes for witches trying to shapeshift into animals; the two have traditionally been separate entities, but the modern world has a way of challenging old ideals. Right now, Bucky wanted to, too.


	11. Cauldron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm really sorry that this chapter is shorter than the others (especially compared to the last two!), but that's because it's mostly dialogue. But there's interesting stuff coming up soon ;) so stay tuned for that.

> **81 DAYS BEFORE**

“The first thing you need to know about potion-making is that it’s as much technique as it is ingredients. Okay?”

Steve won’t let Bucky touch the cauldron. He says that he has to learn with his eyes first and then he can try hands-on stuff. It frustrates Bucky to all hell, but he figures that Steve’s the master, and Bucky is the student, and he won’t question him. For now.

“The second thing,” Steve says. “All potions—and I mean _all of them_ —have salt, water, and iron. All of them. Varying amounts, of course, but at least a little.”

Bucky’s eyebrows draw together. He didn’t know this. “Why?” he asks, looking over to meet Steve’s eyes.

Steve shrugs. “The best answer I’ve gotten is ‘because it’s essential to life.’ But so are a lot of things, you know?”

Bucky stares hard at the iron flakes that Steve keeps in a little jar, the brand-name salt he keeps in the package, and the water that he’s currently keeping in a pitcher. Sure, they’re essential to life, but Bucky feels like there’s a stronger line that he can draw between the two of them, but he’s just not seeing the connection.

Taking a small spoonful of iron flakes, Steve carefully puts it first into the cauldron filled with bubbling water, and then follows with a liberal helping of salt.

“The order in which you put your ingredients in matters,” Steve says. “The amount of time it takes for you to put them in also matters. How hard you stir matters. How often you stir matters. Pretty much the only thing that doesn’t matter is which way you stir it.” Steve looks at Bucky pointedly. “It’s difficult. It’s supposed to be. If it weren’t, any average Joe could do it.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat. This was starting to look like something that he should just leave to the old masters.

“Stop that,” Steve says. Bucky snaps out of his daydreaming to look at Steve, who’s staring at him with a stern expression.

“What?” Bucky croaks.

“Whatever you’re thinking, just stop. You’re a beginner, of course it looks daunting. But that doesn’t mean that you should give up before your first lesson is through.” Steve stirs the iron-water-salt concoction with a long wooden spoon.

Bucky looks down at his shoes. “You’re right. Sorry.”

He’s surprised at how well Steve is able to read Bucky’s expressions. They haven’t known each other all that long, but they’ve spent so much time together—Bucky would say that they’re quickly becoming each other’s best friend.

Well, to Bucky, Steve is really one of his _only_ friends. Besides Foggy, Matt, and Karen, Bucky is a loner.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says, snapping Bucky out of his thoughts. He looks over and smiles at him quickly. “Now, another thing—”

He’s cut off by the faint sound of the doorbell ringing.

“Damn,” Steve mutters. “Turn the heat off, would you? I need to get that.” He drops the spoon that he was using to stir and lets it rest on the lip of the cauldron.

Bucky extinguishes the fire under the cauldron and then follows Steve up, taking the stairs two at a time.

He makes it to the front hall just as Steve’s opening the door to the visitor. When he gets the door all the way open, though, Bucky stands there, confused.

There’s a cat on the porch. Steve just looks down and doesn’t say anything, like this is a normal thing, and after a moment, the cat weaves through Steve’s legs and lets herself in.

When Bucky gets a good look, however, he feels resonance with the cat sitting at his feet and staring up at him. And then, flawlessly, the feline shifts into a short woman with red hair and a don’t-fuck-with-me expression. Bucky almost takes a step back when he meets the intensity of her gaze.

Steve sighs. “Bucky, this is Natasha. Natasha, this is Bucky. Er, James.”

Natasha’s eyes drag up Bucky’s body—not in a sexual way, but in a way that makes Bucky feel exposed nonetheless. She can see right through him while also seeing everything about him.

Everything about this woman is setting off alarms in his head. If Bucky had met her a few months ago, before this thing with Steve, he definitely would have turned tail and ran before she could have even gotten this close. But Bucky has a sneaking suspicion that she would absolutely delight in the chase.

She holds out her hand in a show of civility. “James,” she says simply.

“Natasha,” he says, shaking her hand once. He feels a silent understanding pass between the two of them.

She drops his hand after a second and turns her eyes away. “Steve, a moment?”

Steve and Natasha leave Bucky alone in the hallway while they move off to the side into the house library, shutting the door firmly behind them. Bucky’s a little surprised by the abruptness of it all, but decides to leave it as he goes to the kitchen to make himself an early lunch.

 

They’ve been in there for so long that Bucky’s getting ready to explode.

Bucky can hear Steve and Natasha speaking—no, _arguing_ —in the library. They’ve been in there for hours, and Bucky doesn’t understand how two people can argue for so long without taking a break. Even Bucky and Steve haven’t argued for that amount of time, at least not consecutively.

Finally, the voices stop abruptly. Bucky looks up from the couch, wondering if this is just a false alarm, or if they’re actually done yelling at each other. After five more minutes, the door slowly creaks open, and Natasha and Steve stroll out like nothing’s wrong.

“Aren’t you going to be a good host and offer me something to eat?” Natasha asks Steve. “It’s nearly one in the afternoon, Steve.”

Steve’s face twists into a wry smile. “Would you like something to eat?” he asks.

“No,” she deadpans.

Bucky has to turn away because he can just barely contain his laughter. Natasha is so ironic that it’s hard for him to tell when she’s being serious, but he thinks he’d like to learn. He can definitely see her as someone that he could get along with famously.

“Something funny, Barnes?” Steve says dryly.

“Nothing that you’d care for, Rogers,” he answers simply, and turns back to the program he was watching on the TV.

“I can make tea,” Steve says after a few moments.

“That’ll do,” Natasha says, and goes to sit down next to Bucky on the couch.

The two of them—Nat and Bucky, that is—get to talking. Natasha isn’t a particularly extroverted person, nor is she outgoing. She’s just fearless about social situations. Or, perhaps, she just doesn’t care.

They talk for a long time. Bucky puts on a movie. And then another movie, when the first one’s done. Steve quietly sits by while they converse, makes them both a light dinner when it gets late.

Bucky tells her a joke when they’ve set their plates aside. She smiles at Bucky a little—just a tiny hint of a thing on her face, and Bucky feels like he’s done something absolutely magnificent.

“He’s a keeper, Rogers,” she says, matter-of-factly, the ways she seems to say everything.

Steve blushes and Natasha and Bucky both laugh. Steve stands and grumbles something about going to get more tea.

“How do you know Steve?” Bucky asks, after a moment. He takes a sip of his coffee— decaf, now, because it’s getting late—and looks up at her over his mug.

“I work with him,” she says.

“Oh,” Bucky says, nodding, trying to hide the way his face flushes. That makes total sense. Bucky should have guessed that sooner.

She cocks her head at him, looking at him imploringly. “He told me that you know.”

Bucky’s heart constricts, but Natasha just puts a hand on his arm. Meant to be comforting, probably, but coming from her, it doesn’t come off that way.

“Don’t worry, James,” she says, an amused little smile twisting the corner of her mouth. “I couldn’t care less about you knowing. I _would_ care, but if Steve trusts you, then I guess I do too.” She sighs a little. “That’s what… Steve and I were yelling about in the other room over there.” She smiles and takes a sip of her drink.

Bucky likes her. She’s blunt and to the point, never tip-toeing around formalities. The filter between her brain and her mouth seems nonexistent, but Bucky likes that about her. She doesn’t lie. Doesn’t dance around the truth with distracting words or pretty phrases. She just says it.

He smiles at her and thanks her, and that’s when Steve comes back into the room, a little scowl on his face.

“It’s nearly seven,” he informs Natasha.

She nods and stands up, smoothing the front of her shirt. “That’s my cue to get the hell out,” she says. She smiles and pats Bucky’s cheek. “Let’s do this again, yeah?”

Before Bucky can answer, Natasha has shifted into her familiar form. She wraps herself around his feet, rubbing up against his shins, before she disentangles herself from his legs and starts to make her way for the door.

Steve silently turns the knob and lets her out. She slips through gracefully, tail flicking behind her as she goes.

“She likes you,” Steve says, once the door is closed. Bucky looks up at him, and—is that bitterness that he detects in Steve’s tone?

“She’s… something,” Bucky says lamely.

It’s painfully silent for a few seconds before Steve says, “She doesn’t do relationships.”

Bucky blinks at him. “Okay,” he says slowly. “So?”

Steve’s eyebrows draw together, turning his expression hard and angry. “I mean, knock yourself out, if that’s your kind of thing.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bucky says, holding his hands out. “Time out. What is this all about me and Nat?”

“Just trying to help you out,” Steve says flippantly.

Bucky stares at Steve long and hard before an idea pops into his head. It seems too good to be true.

“Are you… are you _jealous_?” he breathes. And before Steve even answers, he knows it’s true. It’s the best explanation for Steve’s sudden bout of unkindness. “Do you… do you have feelings for Nat?”

Bucky isn’t great at reading Steve, not in the same way that Steve is good at reading Bucky. Steve isn’t outward with his emotions, though Bucky is good at pushing his buttons. He only shows his emotions when he wants to show them. Unlike Bucky, whose emotions seem to always be bubbling at the surface no matter if he wants them there or not.

Bucky realizes with a shock that he didn’t use to be like that. He was closed-off, snappish and flippant. It seemed like his only two emotions were suspicion or anger. Steve wheedled that covering away. Now Bucky’s left here, vulnerable, waiting for Steve’s answer.

It’s silent for a complete five seconds before Steve scoffs. “I’m going upstairs. Do whatever you want.”

Bucky flinches at the way Steve says the words; not a yes, not a no. As Steve retreats down the hallway, Bucky calls after him. 

“Just thought I’d ask,” Bucky says harshly. “Maybe I’ll call her, then. Since you’re so cool with it.”            

He wants to curl up into a ball and hide, but he also wants to slap Steve in the face. Instead he turns on his heel and stomps to the living room, turning the TV on loud enough so that he can annoy Steve in his room upstairs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's familiar form, a Russian blue.  
> 


	12. Cloaks

> **70 DAYS BEFORE**

He does call Nat, in the end, but only because he wants to meet up and talk with her. They commune at Josie’s almost a week and a half after their first meeting, even though it’s a commute for Bucky. It’s the only bar that he ever drinks at anymore.

“I’m gonna slap that man,” Nat declares, taking a sip of his martini. “He’s so goddamn stubborn. Do you want me to talk to him?”

“No… no. It’s fine. I just wish I knew if he was jealous over me or over you.”

Natasha thinks on it for a moment. “I don’t know. I think it’s over you, but I don’t know for sure.”

Bucky feels a weightlessness within his own body. “Yeah?”

Her eyes soften a fraction. “Yes, James. He likes you, a lot. Trust me. I’ve tried setting him up on dates but lately he just flat-out refuses to go on any of them. Months ago, that wasn’t the case, but now…” She smiles.

It’s getting late. Instead of sitting at the bar like he usually does, he’s sitting off to the side at a small, round table with an extra empty seat.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments. Bucky swirls his drink around the bottom of the glass, watching the amber liquid distort his sight.

“I was surprised when you visited,” Bucky says, smiling up at her. “We don’t get many people knocking. Even door-to-door salespeople seem to ignore us.” He chuckles a little.

She smiles at him. “That’s because Steve puts a cloaking charm over the house. You can only find it if he wants you to find it. It confuses anyone else who’s brought near, or drives them away from the place in no time.”

Bucky’s eyebrows pull together. “Really?”

“He never told you that?”

Bucky shakes his head. It makes sense, though. He sees Steve muttering spells as he lays his hands on the walls in the mornings sometimes, but Bucky’s never asked what it was for.

Maybe that’s why the only people who’ve ever knocked on the door before have been two people from his work. Maybe that’s why Foggy never wanted to stay the night at his place, so long ago when they first met.

The door opens and Nat looks over to see who it is. Bucky does so after her, noticing a familiar trio. Bucky waves his friends over with a smile.

Foggy, Matt, and Karen wander over when they see Bucky. They talk for a little bit, a little awkwardly, until Bucky introduces Natasha to the rest of them. Foggy gives Bucky a wink, which Bucky recoils at, and goes on to explain, except he’s cut off by Natasha leaning over to talk and shake hands with everyone.

Bucky can see Natasha checking Matt out, which makes Bucky hide his mouth behind his hand and snicker. She shoots him a look.

They all make small talk until Bucky tells them that he’s going to leave. Natasha decides to stay behind with the rest of them, which makes Bucky wiggle his eyebrows a bit at her. She pinches his side, almost making him yelp.

He leaves quickly after that, taking a cab back to his Brooklyn home.

+++

It’s a little late, but he sees the light on in the kitchen when he enters the brownstone. That must mean Steve’s awake. He swallows the nervous little lump in his throat and makes his way in.

He toes off his shoes and pads his way into the kitchen. He’s not drunk, but he’s a little buzzed, and it gives him the courage to speak when he sees Steve sitting at the breakfast bar, papers spread out all around him and a pen in his hand.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

Steve looks up, as if he hadn’t even known Bucky had come in. Bucky curses himself. Steve looks tired as fuck, frazzled beyond belief. Ever since their little tiff, Steve hasn’t really been talking to him. They fight, and they make potions, and Bucky switches back and forth between dog and human, but other than that, they don’t interact. Steve’s thrown himself head-first into his work. Sorting paperwork for his job, making potions they don’t really need, practicing spells. There’s chalk all over the fucking living room floor from practicing his rituals. Bucky wants to explode.

How the hell does he even bring it up? _Yeah, Nat says that you’re jealous because you have this big ol’ crush on me, so why don’t we get that all sorted away and just get it over with?_

Right?

Wrong. There’s no way to even possibly start with this. Bucky likes Nat, enough to ask her for advice, and they really clicked when they met, but the reality is that Bucky just met her. He can’t trust her one hundred percent, not just yet.

Bucky knows Steve. Steve protects. That’s what he does first and foremost. He protects Bucky. He protects the people at his job. He protects citizens. But he protects himself, too—his emotions, at least. His body, he thinks, is totally expendable.

Steve settles a little bit more into his stool at the breakfast bar. “Hi,” he says, a little awkwardly. He doesn’t know what to say; Steve seems at a loss as well. Eventually, after a few moments of staring, Steve goes back to the thing he’s reading. 

Bucky deflates. He was expecting it, but it still disappoints a little that neither of them know how to deal with this. Steve’s just trying to protect himself, Bucky knows. Bucky wants to do that, too.

“Nat told me that you have, like, some charm over the house,” Bucky says unnecessarily. He checks the fridge for something to eat but finds nothing that really catches his eye. He takes an apple from the fruit basket instead.

Steve wiggles a little in his seat and looks back up at Bucky. He looks tired, beaten-down, defeated. “Yeah,” Steve confirms. “I gotta renew it every week or so, but I like to renew it every day.”

He feels a little spark of hope. Yeah, neither of them know how to talk to each other, but they definitely _want_ to talk to each other. 

“Want me to get you something?” Bucky tries, hope creeping into his voice, traitorous. “Coffee, or something?”

Steve just shakes his head. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”

Sighing, Bucky takes that as his cue to go upstairs. He isn’t getting anything more out of Steve tonight.

He mutters a goodnight to Steve, one that is quietly and distractedly returned as Bucky heads out of the room.

He goes upstairs, changes into his nightclothes, and settles into bed. But he’s wide awake.

What the hell is he going to do?

+++

Bucky stares at the bubbling cauldron. “Can I try a potion by myself?” he asks. It  _has_ been a couple of weeks, he feels pretty confident that he can get a potion right, especially after all of Steve's lessons.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Steve says simply. Bucky narrows his eyes at Steve, a little irritated.

“Why not?”

Steve gives him a sharp look at Bucky’s tone. “Because you’re a beginner and it’s dangerous.”

Bucky wants to argue, but he knows that it won’t do any good. Steve is just one stubborn motherfucker—it won’t do any good to argue.

“Fine,” he mumbles. Steve looks at him strangely for half a second before turning back to the bubbling cauldron in front of them.

Bucky wants to break Steve’s silence. He wants Steve and him to act comfortably around each other again. He wants to explain to Steve that he and Nat are only friends, and have been only friends since the beginning. Whatever romantic interest he saw was a fluke. It wasn’t real.

But he doesn’t know how to say it without perhaps being totally wrong and presumptuous. He did something like that before, getting the supplies for the True Bond without asking first. He doesn’t want to make a mistake like that again.

So instead he listens intently, writes down things that he feels like he should on a little pad of notebook paper that he’s begun bringing to his little lessons with Steve, and shuts the hell up unless he has a burning question.

“This is a basic sickness potion,” Steve says, taking a large, beige-colored root in his hand. He grabs a pair of tongs and puts the root between them before slowly lowering it into the boiling concoction. “Most sickness potions have either ginger or orange juice in them. Weaker ones, for colds and the flu and such, have orange juice. Stronger ones, for more serious diseases, have ginger root.”

\---

“It’s a sickness potion,” Bucky said. He handed the jar full of chicken soup to his little sister. “It’ll help you feel better.”

Rebecca eyed the jar warily, eyebrows stitched together. Bucky refused to break, though, just kept his eyes on her. The jar felt almost uncomfortably warm in his hands.

“I didn’t know you did potions,” she said eventually. She sat up with a cough, a bad one that shook her entire frame and sent shivers through her bones.

“Of course I do potions,” he smirked, which was an absolute lie. “What kind of big brother would I be if I couldn’t do potions to make my little sister feel better?”

She was only four or five _. Bucky remembers that she was so young, because she believed it was actually a potion_ … She uncorked the little jar that Bucky had given her. She stuck her nose close to it and smelled it, inhaling too deeply; she coughed again.

“It’s still warm,” she said.

Bucky smiled. “It’s fresh off the cauldron,” he said proudly, puffing his chest out. Which wasn’t exactly a lie in and of itself. He _had_ just taken it out of the pot he’d cooked it in.

She smiled back at him and tentatively raised the jar to her lips, taking a tiny sip. Deeming it okay, she started to drink the rest.

Bucky felt a little guilty lying to her, but he wanted to make her feel better. She’d been sick for so long, she deserved to feel good again. She needed to _eat_.

 _“_ Mmm,” she hummed, taking the soup away from her lips. “I think I _am_ feeling a little better.”

Bucky smiled. “Of course you are, silly. It’s a sickness potion.”

\---

“Bucky. _Bucky_.”

The man in question snaps out of his daydream and looks over to see Steve looking at him intensely.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks him. “You’re completely spaced out.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he repeats over and over. “I’ll pay attention. I’m sorry.”

Steve regards him with suspicion until he finally turns back to the potion and says, “If you don’t want to do this right now, just say so. I won’t be mad.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I want to be here right now. I swear, I’m sorry. I just…  the potion. It reminds me of my sister.”

Steve looks at him, his gaze melting just a fraction. “Oh,” he says, stilted. He must have surprised him; Bucky doesn’t talk about his sister very often.

If this were different circumstances, Bucky knows Steve would be asking him about her. But Steve’s acting so much less like his friend and so much more like a… mentor. It makes him wonder if this is how he treats the new recruits at his job.

He doesn’t like this. He misses his Steve, his friend. This man in front of him is distant. Not cold, per se, but awkward. Unsure.

Ignoring the tugging in his mind, he turns back to his work, Steve’s instructions, and doesn’t dwell on it.

 

In the evening, in the privacy of his room, Bucky talks to Natasha on the phone.

He lays spread out on his bed, one hand grasping the phone next to his ear and the other trying to balance a book of potions on his stomach. He studies the directions to one as he talks.

“I don’t know what’s up with him,” Bucky complains, straining his neck forward to get a better look at the print on the page.

“Have you tried telling him _how you feel_?” Nat says, sassy as ever.

Bucky flushes hard. “No. I don’t know how to bring it up.” He scoffs. “I’m not you, Nat. I not as brave.”

“Shut up,” she says. “But also, thank you.”

Bucky huffs a little laugh into the receiver. He holds the phone with his head and his shoulder as he moves to turn the page.

“And what if I’m wrong?” he mutters. His chest feels tight with anxiety, even if it’s only a hypothetical situation. He comes off as cocky, as carefree and silly, but in reality he’s scared to be wrong, he’s scared to admit his feelings and not have them returned. And he guesses, when it comes right down to it, he’s scared to be in a relationship when he’s been on his own for so long. 

“Then we’ll have a whole new and even more complicated situation,” he finishes.

He can feel Natasha roll her eyes at him. “I don’t think you’re wrong, James. Besides, if you don’t talk to him, I will.”

“Do _not_ do that.” Bucky sighs. “So what’re you doing?” he asks, not-so-subtly changing the subject. He looks at the new page he’s on in his book while he waits for her answer.

Christ, this is complicated. He wanted to make one of the potions that Steve uses to heal bruising, and he assumed it would be simple. It’s definitely not.

“Oh, you know,” Nat says breezily. Bucky barely hears her. “Just lazing around at home. Enjoying being alone.”

Bucky nods. “Do you know where to get—” He looks at the ingredients again, squinting in disbelief. “Green cardamom?”

“What the fuck is that?” Nat says.

“I don’t fucking know.”

He’s quite for a moment while Nat pauses on the other side of the line. After a second she says, “Bucky?”

Bucky perks up when he hears her use his nickname and says, “Yeah?”

“Just for the record,” she says, “you are as brave as I am. Don’t ever believe you’re not. If you’re nervous about telling Steve, I get that. But don’t hold yourself back because you’ve told yourself you’re not brave enough.”

Bucky blushes, even though she’s not there in person. “Okay, Nat. Thank you.”


	13. Advancement / Evolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this early because it's killing me to wait. Enjoy!

> **51 DAYS BEFORE**

It’s nearly three weeks of the same awkwardness from Steve and Bucky feels more drained than ever. It’s like he’s back to the days when he first came here and niether of them knew how to treat each other. It’s like neither of them know each other anymore.

He hates that he’s gotten used to it. He hates that he expects Steve to be distanced from him.

It’s at the point where Bucky doesn’t care if they ever Bond, if they ever get together—he just wants to be near Steve and be his friend.

It’s not even that Bucky loves— _loves_?—Steve. Well, not all of it. He misses the banter and the friendly touches. He misses his friend, who would crack jokes with him and share beers with him and watch stupid shit on the TV with him.

His one solace is immersing himself in his learning. He memorizes instructions to potions, sorts out ingredients and buys more of the ones they’re low on. It surprised the hell out of Steve when Bucky showed up at home, late, with bags and bags of groceries from the witching goods store.

“I thought you were out with Natasha,” Steve had said.

Bucky had just smiled. “Nah.”

The slight smile on Steve’s face had almost been enough for Bucky to want to ask him why he was acting this way. Why he suddenly wasn’t letting himself get newr Bucky, suddenly treating Bucky like a stranger. But instead he sorted out the ingredients and brought them downstairs to the potions table.

The more he reads about potions and magic, the more he wants to be a part of it. Magic is a wonderful, exciting thing. He was afraid of it before, avoided it, repressed it. Now he wants to immerse himself in it. Make up for all the years he lost to his fear. He’s not afraid anymore.

He wants more than potions. He hasn’t made a potion by himself yet, because Steve keeps telling him he’s not ready yet, but he knows this is something he wants. He wants to learn spells. Charms. Rituals.

And, yeah, it’ll be difficult. Spells, charms—those are things reserved for witches, usually. But there are some familiars that handle it well. If they can do it, why can’t Bucky?

In the morning, Bucky makes his way down the stairs and to the kitchen. Steve isn’t down yet, but Bucky heard him moving around upstairs, so he’s awake. He turns on the coffee maker and starts to brew it for the two of them.

Steve makes his way down a few minutes later. His hair isn’t smooth and neat like it usually is, sticking up at odd angles, and there’s a small part of Bucky that thinks that it’s the cutest thing. A small part that he tells to shut the fuck up because Steve hasn’t really talked to him in a month since the thing with Nat.

“Coffee,” Steve mutters, padding his way into the kitchen. Despite himself, Bucky smiles at the way Steve looks when he’s all frazzled and sleep-soft. He sets a cup of coffee in front of Steve—black, with two sugars—and pours himself one. Steve’s almost finished half a cup before Bucky’s even sat down.

Steve pulls out a book and opens it up. Now that Steve has some coffee in him, Bucky figures that now is as good a time to ask as any.

“Steve?” Bucky asks. Steve looks up from where he’s reading a book on the table.

He’s nervous to ask, but he stops himself from stumbling over his words too much. “I, uh, I’ve been thinking, lately. Um, I think I’m getting pretty well-acquainted with potions, and I wanted to know if you’d help me with, uh. Learning a little more about magic.”

“Like what?”

“Like, uh…” He swallows the lump in his throat and plows on. “Like… spells?”

Steve stares at him for a long time. Bucky feels like a teenager asking his boss for a raise at his shit job. When he sees the look on Steve’s face, he knows the answer he’s going to get before he even opens his mouth.

“I’m not… I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Buck.” Bucky deflates and casts his eyes to the floor. “It’s just—you haven’t even touched a potion, yet. You haven’t made one on your own, Bucky, I don’t know how well you’d take to actual spells and enchantments.”

Anger swells up suddenly inside of him. All at once, Steve’s distant behavior and awkward attitude is too much, and this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“And who’s the one who told me I couldn’t touch the cauldron?” he says icily.

Steve raises an eyebrow, shocked at Bucky’s tone. “What?”

“Why do you keep telling me no?” Bucky snaps. He stands up from the breakfast bar, pacing the kitchen angrily—a habit he got from his familiar form.

Steve looks surprised at his sudden show of emotion. It’s been four weeks of droning along and pretending that nothing’s the matter, and Bucky’s finally sick of it. But Steve looks like he was hoping the charade would go on.

“Do you think I’m irresponsible? Is that it? Do you think I won’t take this seriously, even after all this?” he says. He’s so angry that he’s almost shaking. This is something that he can do, something that he _knows_ he can do — he’s come a long way from that shy, scared kid who couldn’t even change into his familiar form. He’s stronger than that kid.

“No!” Steve assures him quickly. “No, that’s not—”

“I know I’m younger than you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a child. I can do things for myself, too. I know my capabilities, Steve. I know my limits.”

“Where is this coming from?” Steve retorts. “We were perfectly fine until just now.”

“We weren’t fine before this, and you fucking know it.” Steve shrinks a little, and Bucky continues. “Everything I’ve wanted to do you just reject before even hearing me out.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to calm himself down before he accidentally changes into his familar form. “I want to hear about your past, you shut me out. I want to Bond, you say no. I want to handle a miniscule fucking potion, and you won’t even let me touch the goddamn cauldron.”

Steve shakes his head in confusion. “Wait, you still want to Bond?”

Bucky’s eyebrows pull together. “That’s not what this is about.”

Steve stares at him, mouth agape. His jaw shuts with a click.

“What?” Bucky asks, when Steve looks troubled.

“Nothing. I just… didn’t know that you still wanted to do that.”

Bucky feels like he just opened up a whole new set of problems unwittingly. “I thought it was obvious,” he admits, and then looks down and to the side, “and that you were just ignoring it and going along as usual.”

Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t know.” The tension is cut when Steve’s phone suddenly goes off. He picks it up and answers, listening to the voice on the other end. After a short exchange, Steve ends the call and stands up.

“That’s my work,” he says after a moment. He clears his throat. “I have to go in. I might, uh, be gone for a bit.”

Bucky stares at him. _Are you fucking kidding me?_ he thinks.

“How long?”

Steve must sense the anger that Bucky’s trying to repress, because he says, “It should only be a few. Three or less.”

Bucky looks away from Steve, tracing the grain of the table with his fingers. “Fine.”

“And, Bucky…” Bucky looks back up when Steve sighs. “If you want to learn spells… I’ll help. I’ll help.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about the past few weeks. I should have talked to you. But I’m a coward. And an asshole.” Bucky just stares. This is very different from how he thought it would go. “It _is_ difficult, though, Bucky. I’m not saying that to make you not want to do it. I’m just saying it so you know.”

Bucky doesn’t feel the satisfaction that he thought he would by winning an argument with Steve.

“We’ll talk when I get back,” Steve says. “I have, uh, crystals for spells. But you should probably get your own set if you’re serious about this.”

Bucky nods, too conflicted to smile. “I will. But you need to go.”

“Right.” Steve rubs the back of his neck again and smiles shyly at Bucky—the most genuine smile he’s gotten from Steve in a long time. It warms Bucky right to his core. “Right.”

+++

Unsurprisingly, it costs a fair bit of money to buy a bunch of high-quality crystals to be used in magic spells.

Steve’s been gone for a day. He sent Bucky a text saying that he’s going to be fine and that he shouldn’t worry, even though Bucky is going to anyway. He also tells Bucky to pick up some crystals at a market down the street that specializes in stones used in magic.

Bucky gets his ass off the couch and walks down the street and finds the shop that Steve was referring to. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and makes his way inside.

The place is small, even for being a shop in the city. There are small crates lining the walls filled with semi-precious stones. The more expensive stones are protected behind glass.

The shopkeeper eyes him while he’s picking through his crystals. She has a little smile on her face. Bucky resonated with her when he first walked in, but other than that, he can’t imagine what she could possibly be thinking. She’s young, with long brown hair and warm brown eyes. She can’t be older than he is. Perhaps she’s even younger.

“So you’re a familiar, then?” she asks him after he’s been staring at the same stones for a couple of minutes. He has no idea what he’s doing. He should have asked Steve what to get before he came here.

Bucky looks up when he hears her speak and smiles sheepishly. “Yeah,” he says.

She’s got a thick Russian accent and a devious little glint in her eye that Bucky immediately takes to. She comes out from behind the counter. She wears loose red and black clothing and no shoes.

“I thought so,” she answers. “You want to learn spells? Or have you been practicing long?”

“I want to learn,” he says.

She nods and hold out her hand. “Wanda Maximoff,” she says.

He takes her hand and shakes it. Its coldness sends a shock up his arm. “James Barnes,” he answers.

She smiles knowingly at him when she drops her hand. Before Bucky can ask, she takes him gently by the arm, leading him to another side of the shop. “These are the basics,” she says, her accent making her words thick. “Quartz and amethyst are the two most basic stones. They are in the vast majority of spells. You’ll definitely need one or two of each.”

Bucky nods as she explains things to him. He grabs two small crystals of each. They feel heavy and cold in his hand. Their carved edges dig into his palm as he turns them over and over with his fingers.

She hands him semi-precious stones and explains their functions to him as she goes. Onyx for protection. Lapis lazuli for peace and beauty. Jade for luck and blessings. Garnet for fire magic. Celestite for healing and dream magic.

He tries to keep it all straight in his head, but he feels like he should be writing it down. Soon she stops and tells him that the stones he has should cover it for now.

“You don’t want to go too quickly,” she says. “Magic is everywhere, but it can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Bucky nods and thanks her. She brings him up to the counter to ring him up. He spreads his collection of stones out on the counter and she begins to add up his total.

“What’s that?” he asks, pointing at a collection of necklaces behind her counter. It’s a simple necklace with a glass pendant, showing a blue circular eye.

“The evil eye,” she says. “Protects from curses cast by malevolent glares.”

Is that a thing? Can that happen? He might as well be dead for all the people he’s pissed off. Bucky stares at it a moment before saying, “Can I get one of those, too?”

Wanda smiles and hands him one, adding it to his total. He puts it on immediately. That’s when something else catches his attention. A stone among the others in his collection that he hadn’t put there.

“I didn’t put this one in here,” he says, pointing at the stone. It’s spherical, and at first glance it looks completely opaque white, but after a second Bucky sees its blue shimmer and subtle translucence. He picks it up and studies it. “What is it?”

“Moonstone,” Wanda says cheerily. “Good for divination, water magic… and love spells.”

Bucky blanches and nearly drops the stone. “I—what?”

“I may not be a perfect diviner, but I know when I see a man in love,” she says with a crooked smile. “Don’t try to lie to me, James.”

“You’re a Seer?” Bucky asks. He swallows the lump in his throat as his forehead creases in confusion and shock. Most Seers lose their vision when they’re young, but this girl doesn’t seem to be blind. And while he knows Matt bustles around like it’s not even a hindrance, most Seers still a dog or a cane or a friend to make their way around with no issue.

“Not a natural Seer,” she says. “It is a learned talent on my part. Just like you.”

Bucky smiles at her comment and finally looks up at her as a thought occurs to him. “Wait. Is that why you shook my hand? So you could get a reading on me?”

She smiles at him sheepishly, confirming his theory. Seers are known for telling the future, but they often can get glimpses into someone’s past or present. Some use crystal balls, others prefer palm readings—talented palm-readers barely have to use any effort or time to get a read on an individual.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “My shop has been robbed before. It’s become a habit to protect my living.”

Bucky smiles a little at her. “Don’t apologize. I was just curious.” He clears his throat. “I, uh, I can’t get the moonstone, though. I’m already spending more than I should.”

She shakes her head. “Excuses, James. Take it for free. You may be glad that you did.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I couldn’t take it for free,” he argues. “Not when you just told me that people have robbed your shop.”

Wanda rolls her eyes at him. “A single stone won’t ruin me, James Barnes. Please. Take it.”

A heavy feeling settles into Bucky’s stomach. He can’t refuse her when he has no excuse. He pays her and then waits there patiently as she wraps the stones individually to protect them from scratches. Then he walks home with his collection. The bag of stones feels much heavier than it should be.

+++

Bucky buys a storage box for his stones and labels them all. Each stone has their own little compartment in the box. He pauses when he gets around to making room for the moonstone.

A love spell. Christ. Most love spells aren’t made to _make_ a person fall in love, but made to attract a lover. Considering how much time Bucky spends around Steve, it’s no doubt that that was what Wanda was referring to.

Bucky shakes his head. He won’t manipulate Steve like that. He puts the moonstone along with the rest of the stones. He has nothing to hide.

 

Steve is back two days after Bucky’s time at the crystal shop. He arrives at home when Bucky is sitting on the couch, in dog-form, spread across it completely and lying on his side. It feels so much better to sleep as a dog than it does to sleep as a human.

The one downside to sleeping as a dog, though, is that he rarely ever reaches deep sleep before something is jerking him out of it and into wakefulness. The house creaking at night as it settles. Someone yelling on the street. Or, in this case, Steve opening the door and clambering inside.

He leaps off the couch and trots to the front hallway, meeting Steve there, ears raised.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, a smile spreading across his face.

Bucky changes back into his human form. Steve’s smile warmed and relaxed every bone in his body. He hasn’t seen it in so long.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky says, smiling in return.

They get right into it. With Steve’s arrival, he tells Bucky that he’s thought about what they talked about before he left, and he thinks that Bucky’s right.

“Witches aren’t as open as familiars are,” he explains. Bucky watches him across the living room, sitting on the large armchair while Steve stands next to the chest in the middle of the room. “We—the witch community as a whole—don’t really like showing weakness.

“Truth is, we all struggled with magic at some point or another. We couldn’t get any spells right, we kept screwing up our potions even if we followed the directions to the letter. And for us, it’s supposed to come naturally.”

Bucky nods in understanding. “I know it’ll be hard,” he answers. “If it gets too difficult, I’ll stick to potions and maybe I’ll come back to spells when I’m ready for it.”

“And you need to learn language etiquette,” Steve says seriously. “One wrong slip of the tongue and you can get seriously hurt.”

Bucky nods. He knows how strict magic is. In potions, you follow the rules, every step, word for word. No substitutions in the ingredients. Not a grain of salt more than asked for, not a cup of water more than required. One wrong mark in a sigil, one botched word, and you either got hurt or had to start from scratch.

“Actually,” Steve says, a little smile on his face, “there’s a spell I can use to help you learn faster. Does that sound okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, nodding again. “Perfect.”

+++

The next day, they carry on as usual, but Bucky can tell that Steve’s mood has improved a lot. He’s talking to Bucky again, which makes him feel visible again.

They’re downstairs, picking up where they left off with Bucky’s potions training. He watches as Steve gathers ingredients and flips to a page in the book that he’ll be using. Then he glances over at Bucky.

“You wanna handle this one?” Steve asks, looking over at him. There’s a friendly smile on his face, though Bucky can see the worry that’s there, too. His fingers hold the wooden spoon lightly, as if itching to let go.

Bucky gives him a slow, small smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I got this.”

Steve moves aside and Bucky steps over to take his place. He looks at the directions carefully, and starts to assess his ingredients.

Salt, iron flakes. The water is already in the cauldron, not yet boiling. Two quarts of strawberries, dried lemon rind, a bag of green tea, and a bag of sugar.

Looking at his ingredients now, they seem terribly mundane. He tries to concentrate and thinks of what his potions book in his room said.

_The difference between throwing ingredients together in a boiling vat of water and potions is that the maker has intent for it to be something more, as well as the ability to make it so._

He swallows, picking up the strawberries. There’s three quarts. He only needs two. He starts measuring.

The stems are already picked off. He looks at the directions again, making sure that he got them right, and crushes them with the flat of his blade. Once he’s finished crushing the two quarts, the water is at a rapid boil. He quickly scrapes the crushed strawberries inside and stirs them for two minutes.

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t let it distract him. He stays concentrated as he measures out the lemon rind and the salt. He throws them in together, in the same tablespoonful. Then he sprinkles in the iron and steeps the green tea in the boiling concoction for exactly two minutes, as the instructions stated.

The only thing left is the sugar. He sighs and measures out two cups, dumping them in one after the other. He stirs until it’s all dissolved, and then feels something strange inside of him.

It’s like his blood is crawling forward to his fingertips. He recognizes the underlying pins-and-needles feeling of magic, but it’s… different. Strange and familiar all at once.

He keeps his hand on the wooden spoon until the feeling has passed. Then he puts out the fire below the cauldron, removes it from the remaining heat, and steps away for Steve to look.

Steve looks down into the cauldron. His forehead creases immediately, and Bucky’s chest tightens in panic.

“Is it that bad?” Bucky asks, trying to keep the waver out of his voice. He didn’t expect it to be one hundred percent correct, but he didn’t expect to fail altogether, either. He wanted to make Steve happy. He wanted Steve to be proud of him, to see that he’s more capable than he comes off as.

“No, it’s… perfect,” Steve breathes. He looks closer at the concoction in the shiny clay cauldron, as if amazed.

The pressure in Bucky’s chest releases. “You’re too kind,” he says, a grin spreading across his face.

“No, Bucky—” Steve turns around, a confused and shocked look on his face. “I mean, it’s really, _really_ perfect.”

“Is that… bad?” he asks, worry filling his thoughts.

“No, of course not,” Steve says quickly. He shakes his head. “Not many people get a perfect potion on their first try. Especially not familiars. I was just surprised.”

Bucky smiles. “You believe me now?”

Steve chuckles. “Man, you blew me away. Of course I believe you.”

 

Steve’s compliments make Bucky feel like he’s floating. Now that his friend is talking to him again, Bucky can’t seem to stay away from him. He finds Steve in the library that night, and goes inside to talk to him.

“What are you reading?” Bucky asks.

Steve is sitting in a plush armchair, a book in hand. He looks up when Bucky speaks to him, a little smile on his face.

“A spellbook, actually,” he says. His smile turns sheepish. “I’m trying to find spells that might be for beginners. So you can learn.”

Bucky nods, and then gets an idea. He sits on the overstuffed chaise that sits across from Steve and says, “Give me the basics. Of casting spells. Like, what do I absolutely need to know.”

Steve thinks for a second and then taps the textbook with the nail of his index finger. “Magic is like science in a lot of ways. There are laws, limits. A lot of people think that magic is nonsensical and random, but people who’ve grown up learning it see patterns. You can’t just do whatever with magic and expect it to turn out right. You need the _ability_ and the _will_.”

Steve gives Bucky a long look. “The way you say the spells _and_ being born as a familiar or a witch—that’s what will give you the ability to cast a spell. But your intent for the spell—that’s the _will_. You need to supply that yourself.

“And it seems really abstract. It doesn’t feel concrete. That’s what makes it harder to learn than potions. It doesn’t feel real until it is.”

Bucky feels his heart slamming against his ribs. He’d unconsciously gotten closer to Steve in his seat while he was speaking. The way he talked about it, with such passion, with the voice of a storyteller… Bucky felt like he was enchanted already.

He clears his throat when he realizes what he did and leans back. “Okay. I’ll, um, look into the rest of that. Thanks, Steve. You’re a good teacher.”

He gets up and starts to leave, but then Steve grabs his arm. Gently, but he doesn’t loosen his grasp. Bucky hadn’t even realized that Steve had stood up.

“Wait, Bucky…” Steve says. He smiles sadly. “I know I haven’t been the nicest to you the past few weeks.”

Bucky wants to say something like, _Damn right you weren’t,_ but he keeps his mouth shut and waits for Steve to finish.

“I, um—” He shakes his head. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that. Like you don’t exist. There’s no excuse I could give that would make that okay.”

Bucky stares at him. Steve is so confusing; he often feels like he’s seeing two different men in the same body. Some days Steve will be like this—caring, compassionate. Guilty. A martyr. But then, other days, he’ll be closed-off, a cold and beautiful marble statue. Bucky wonders how the two are connected.

“Anyway, I was thinking about what you were saying, the other day.” He rubs the back of his neck. “About Bonding. About how you wanted to, still.”

Bucky’s breath catches in his chest. He never thought that he would be hearing the words that come out of Steve’s mouth. Steve is still holding his arm. His hand is burning against Bucky’s skin.

“And, if you’re _absolutely_ sure, like, one hundred percent sure, I’d like to, too. Bond with you.”

Bucky feels dizzy, but he doesn’t even need to think about the answer. He already knows. “I’m sure, Steve,” Bucky murmurs. “Absolutely. One hundred percent.”


	14. Silk Ropes & Ceremony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking that I might start updating twice a week because it's killing me to only do it once. Let's see if I can keep up!
> 
> Enjoy the chapter, lovelies! Thank you all so much for you comments and kudos. They really mean a lot to me. :^)

> **46 DAYS BEFORE**

Bucky honestly thinks that, for a second, Steve might kiss him.

When Bucky says those words, “Absolutely. One hundred percent,” Steve leans forward ever so slightly. Bucky’s hand is on his knee—when did he put that there? —and his grip tightens reflexively.

Bucky lurches forward, stops, and then lurches forward again. His eyes flick to Steve’s lips and he can see Steve’s do the same to Bucky’s. They’re so close, Bucky can feel his heart hammering against his ribs.

But then, as fear grips his throat, he pulls back, leaving Steve vulnerable, out in the open.

The look on Steve’s face is first one of confusion, then a flitting look of worry before he stands and clears his throat quickly. There’s a mumbled goodnight, and then Steve leaves.

Bucky rubs the back of his neck. Christ. Why did he do that? He was so close to getting what he wanted, and then suddenly… it was too much.

“Good going,” Bucky mutters to himself. Hand still rubbing the back of his neck, Bucky stands and makes his way upstairs for the night.

+++

Bucky remembers being a child and reading about Bonding. He didn’t understand it then. He didn’t get it.

His mother and father weren’t a True Bond, but they were Bonded. When she died, he remembers his father being crushed. He was never the same — he was quiet, withdrawn, weak.

That’s what Bonds do. While regular Bonds aren’t as strong, they give a connection deeper than anything, deeper than any relationship, be it family, friend, or lover.

That’s probably what caused his death, years later. Not the sickness, not the weakness to fight and stay alive, but the desire to feel whole again. To be with his wife.

Bonds between True Bonds are a hundred times stronger, but he can’t help but feel like he’s doing the right thing anyway. His father would tell him he’s too young. His sister would worry for him. His mother would wring her hands. But Bucky knows that he wants this. He wants this.

Tying souls together. That’s what Bonds are—stitching souls together until they mold into one. When they finally attune to each other, they might even be able to feel each other’s emotions. Bucky thrills at the thought.

Steve watches him as he teaches him to make more potions. He even gives Bucky the directions on how to make the Serum. The amount of trust that Steve is putting on him is dizzying. They wait to learn actual spells, but Steve gives him quick lessons on language etiquette, telling him the basics and reiterating over and over that messing up can result in a lot of harm done.

“I know, Steve,” Bucky says, a wry smile on his face. “Just like potions. I know.”

Steve teaches him what words he’s supposed to say during the Bonding ritual. Language etiquette isn’t difficult to grasp—there has to be purpose behind your words. He tells Bucky that he has to believe that the magic will actually happen based on your will and ability. If not, it won’t happen—a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Bonding ritual demands that they wait until the next new moon to perform the ritual. They watch the waning crescent at night, and they know that it won’t be long now. It’s a week before the moon is finally new, the sky dark. Stars poke through the blackness, pinpricks of light in ink.

They don’t speak about it. They just know.

That night, Bucky readies himself. He looks over the instructions again and again as Steve works on his own things. He grabs the supplies they need, finding the ceremonial knife, chalk, and silk ropes tucked away in one of Steve’s supply closets that he uses only for spells.

Bucky holds two crystals of green tourmaline. _Good for earth magic, healing, and new beginnings_ , Wanda’s voice repeats in his head.

He smiles to himself, sits back and watches as Steve draws the sigil on the floor in chalk.

He shakes in anticipation, _actually_ shakes, but he’s not scared. For once, he feels like he’s doing something right. Something that’s meant to be.

Steve is so careful, lost in concentration as he finishes the sigil. He gently blows away the excess chalk and surveys his handiwork. Satisfied, he stands and brushes his palms on his jeans, smiling.

“Ready?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks at the clock —11:14 PM. They have to do the ritual around 11 PM, no later than 12 AM. They aren’t pressed for time, but Bucky would rather do it already, so he says, “Yes.”

Steve walks over to the bag on the table and pulls out the silk ropes and ceremonial knife that Bucky had bought so long ago. He smiles sheepishly.

“I couldn’t find the strength to get rid of them,” he admits. “I knew we were going to use them someday.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Bucky smiles back. “You were right, after all.”

Pulling in a deep breath, Steve takes the directions to the ritual and reads them very carefully. Even though he’s read them enough to have memorized them by now, he can tell Steve really doesn’t want to screw this up.

Steve guides him to the middle of the sigil. It’s quite big — around three yards in diameter. They had to move the couch out of the way to make room.

Steve stands really close to him. Bucky’s heart kicks against his ribs. The room is dark, but the light from the streetlamp outside is filtering in through a window. The light throws shadows across his face, makes his lips and cheekbones seem more defined.

“Ready?” Steve whispers again.

Breath is harder to come by, but he’s never felt more energized. He nods.

“Give me your hand,” Steve says. His voice is barely above a whisper, like what they’re doing is secret.

Well, not secret. Private. Just for the two of them.

Steve starts tying a knot between the two lengths of silk rope. Bucky leans over to see what he’s doing.

Steve looks up, noticing Bucky’s glances. “Double infinity knot,” he explains. “Everything in magic has to be symbolic, right?”

Steve takes one end of the rope and ties it just above Bucky’s elbow.

“Help?” he asks. Bucky smiles and obliges, taking the other end of the rope and tying it just above Steve’s elbow.

“It’s, um.” His eyes flit up to Bucky’s nervously. “It’s blood magic.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I was the one who bought the knife, Steve.”

Steve flushes. “I know, I just—” The corner of his mouth twists. “Just give me your damn hand,” he mutters.

Bucky laughs and raises his hand to Steve’s face, palm up, fingers relaxed. Steve has the knife in his hand, and Bucky can see his fingers shaking.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits.

Is that what’s got him so riled? Bucky smiles softly at him. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You can patch me up afterwards.”

Steve chuckles and nods, clearing his throat. And then, in one quick motion, he slices the blade across the middle of Bucky’s hand. It takes a moment for the sting to set in.

Bucky hisses at the pain, but Steve just gives him a guilty look before cutting across his own hand.

“Now, you need to wrap your hand around the knot,” Steve says. “Tightly.”

Bucky does so, and after a second, Steve’s bloodied hand wraps around Bucky’s fist. It hurts to grip the rope with a hand that’s cut open, but he knows he needs to do it, so he just grits his teeth as Steve starts saying the words to the spell.

“I hereby bind my soul to this cunning man, so that when he dies, so will I. This is my will, so shall it be.”

Bucky grins at the oldness of the language—“cunning folk” are what witches and familiars used to be called. It was one of the nicer names that humans gave to them, among many insults.

Their blood drips down from their fists and into the center of the sigil. Mixing.

Steve glances up at Bucky. It’s his turn now.

“I bind my soul to the cunning man that holds me,” he says, voice clear and loud, like Steve taught him. “My soul is his, and his is mine. This is my will, so shall it be.”

The words echo throughout the room for a second and nothing happens. He starts to fear that he’s done it wrong, but then Bucky feels the knot in his fist grow uncomfortably warm. He holds on tight. The warmth spreads to his arm—it feels the sensation he had felt when he made a potion for the first time, but a hundred times more intense. Steve stiffens at the same time Bucky does, sucking in air through his teeth.

And then he passes out.

 

The first time he changed into his familiar form, it was an accident.

He was eleven years old. He’d changed into _a_ familiar form before—several, even—but not the one that would ultimately become his own.

He was sitting on the porch in front of his home in Brooklyn, watching his little sister playing in the street. They lived in suburbia, so Bucky hadn’t worried about the traffic to terribly, and he trusted Rebecca to get out of the way when there was a car coming. He and his parents watched over Becca like hawks.

The day was warm, bordering on hot. It was spring in Brooklyn, almost noon—the sun was climbing high in the sky. An occasional breeze made the temperature perfect.

Rebecca sat on the sidewalk, a bucket of sidewalk chalk within her reach. Bucky wasn’t able to tell what she was drawing, but she seemed to be trying to use all the colors possible.

The sound of squealing rubber tires made Bucky glance up.

There was a car coming down the street. Rebecca looked up and then started focusing on her drawing again. She shouldn’t have to worry—she was on the sidewalk, the car would stay on the street. Only, the driver was swerving left and right—drunk, it seemed—and the car was coming straight for Rebecca.

Strong emotions are what trigger transformations at young ages. Panic is what transformed Bucky.

He took off from his spot on the porch and dashed down the lawn, grabbed the back of Rebecca’s shirt and dragged her up to the porch. The car barely missed them and crashed into their mailbox.

Only when Rebecca was safely in the grass did Bucky realize that he had changed into his familiar form—a large black dog with pointy ears and strong muscles. He had pulled Rebecca up the lawn with his teeth. There was a big chunk of her shirt missing where he had bit it and dragged her.

Adrenalin. It felt like fire was burning through his veins. It felt like he could do anything, take on the world. It felt like immeasurable strength was weaved into the folds of his muscles, in his tendons and bones.

But, above all things, it felt like coming home.

That’s the way it feels like when he wakes up and he knows he’s Bonded with Steve. For the first time in his life, he feels complete.

His soul feels too big for his chest, in a good way. He feels full. He feels _whole._ He feels _alive._

He’s still not completely awake. He opens his eyes, vision swimming. Eyes unfocused. Steve is cradling his face with his large hand.

“Buck…?” Steve’s voice is far away, distorted and echoing. He can’t quite catch everything Steve’s trying to say. “Can you… me? Buck—”

Bucky’s suddenly hit with a freight train of emotions. They feel strange, like panic and fear, but for some reason they don’t sit right with him. They don’t feel _wrong_ , just… foreign.

He can’t seem to get a handle on the panic or the fear. Everything he tries, the feelings still linger, but at the same time, he feels happy. Overjoyed, even. What’s the deal with the panic? He’s not worried. He’s not scared. Or, at least, he shouldn’t be.

And then it occurs to him. They’re not _his_ emotions.

They’re _Steve’s_.

But that shouldn’t be possible. He shouldn’t be able to feel Steve’s emotions so quickly, no—sometimes even the closest Bonds don’t feel each other’s emotions for years, and even then it’s only a faint trace, a tickle at the back of the mind.

This is different—he can feel Steve’s emotions almost as strongly as he can feel his own, pumping alongside them like a second heart in his chest. There’s just a thin veil separating the two.

Bucky pries his eyes open, looking up at Steve. Relief floods his chest—that’s Steve’s emotion, not his. The effect is dizzying. Shit.

“Are—” His voice sounds scratchy, so he clears his throat. “Do you feel that, too?”

“What?” Steve pulls back, but Bucky feels Steve’s relief fill him. “What are you—?”

And then he stops, a confused look crosses his face, then he closes his eyes and concentrates harder. He says, “That doesn’t make sense.”

Bucky sits up, and Steve offers him a hand. Bucky takes it, allowing himself to be pulled up to his feet.

He rubs his head. He can feel a bruise starting to form near the back of his skull, where he bumped it on the floor when he passed out.

“I know, right?” he says, rubbing his head slowly. Steve goes over to the sink, fills a cup of water, and hands it to Bucky. He doesn’t say anything else until Bucky’s finished it all. Bucky notices that the cut on his hand from the ceremonial knife has healed without him needing to fix it. Perhaps the ritual magic fixed it.

“You can feel it clearly?” he asks Bucky.

Bucky nods. “Yeah. It’s almost hard to tell your emotions from mine,” he admits.

Steve shakes his head. “That shouldn’t be possible,” he sighs.

There’s a moment of silence while the two deliberate over the facts presented in front of them. Bucky’s never even heard of a case like this before. If it’s happened before, it must be really, really rare.

“Well, I guess we were always a special case, right?” he says after a moment. Steve smiles at him so wide and genuine that Bucky can’t help the rush of affection that floods his senses, and then realizes too late that Steve can feel that, too.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

Steve looks at him in surprise, and then confusion. “Buck…?”

Bucky pauses in fear, affection whisked away, but it’s too late—Steve is already looking at him with a look on his face. Bucky has to leave; he has to leave _now._

“I have to—” He stutters, pointing towards the stairs. “I gotta go.” He stumbles backwards in his rush to get out, almost falling to his feet. He bolts towards the stairs.

“Bucky, wait!” Steve’s voice calls.

To Steve’s surprise as well as his own, Bucky stops and stands at the foot of the stairs. He can feel Steve’s gaze on the back of his neck. He curls his fingers tightly around the handrail, knuckles going white.

This was a huge fucking mistake. Fuck.

“Let me walk you up,” Steve says carefully.

Bucky wants to snap at him, tell him he can get to his room just fine. That’s his first instinct—to push Steve away. But it’s too late, Steve is already by his side.

“Lead the way,” he whispers.

Bucky starts walking up the stairs automatically. He forces himself to take them one at a time, instead of sprinting up them like he wants to.

He gets to his room quickly, but it feels like an age when neither of them say anything the entire way up.

When he gets to his room, he opens the door, pauses, and turns around to look at Steve.

Steve is staring at him, and Bucky can’t help but feel like a deer in the headlights. He can feel Steve’s emotions even more clearly when they’re looking at each other.

Affection. Adoration. ( _He won’t say love. He can’t say it. It’s not possible._ )

Fuck. Steve… feels the same way.

It doesn’t make sense in his mind.

He left home searching for something better, little sister in tow because he couldn’t stand the thought of being alone.

And in searching for something better, some better love, he lost who he was. His heart cracked with the loss of a loved one and it never got repaired.

And here he is. Still running, still searching. Been doing it so long that he almost doesn't even remember what he's running from or what he's searching for. He enver even stopped to think that maybe it's the same thing.

He’s been alone for so long that he’s not sure how to be _with_. Steve is here, everything that Bucky's ever wanted. He's given Bucky everything he's ever wanted: a deeper connection to another human being. A deeper connection to _himself_. Here he is, his entire world, offering up the one last thing that Bucky wants: a needle and thread to stitch Bucky’s heart back whole. A smile on his face and adoration in his eyes; his hands are eager, but still Bucky hesitates. And for what reason?

For what reason?

For the reason that Bucky is scared. He’s twenty-two years old, and he’s still scared. Not of men with guns, not of people trying to take advantage of him, but of the man who loves him. How fucked-up is that? Steve is here with love in his eyes and concern in his chest and Bucky can't even look him in the eye.

“I’m,” he starts, then changes his mind. “Goodnight.” He pushes his door open a little wider, starting to walk into his room, but Steve’s voice stops him.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly, “are you really going to pretend like you can’t feel it?”

He turns back, hand still gripping the doorknob. He thinks that he dents it a little with how hard he’s holding it. He makes a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but it’s too warped by nervousness and hysterics to really be discernable. “I didn’t think we could feel each other’s emotions so soon,” he admits.

Steve is looking at him, his gaze calm, if a little bit scared. Bucky can feel it. He should answer the question, but his heart is beating savagely against his ribs and he’s silent, so fucking silent.

At a time like this, suddenly he has nothing to say. Fuck irony.

“Steve…” he murmurs. Desperately. Bucky swallows the lump in his throat. It’s not that he’s pretending that he can’t feel it. He _can_. And he’s terrified.

Steve must feel his fear. “I’m sorry for ever making you think I didn’t trust you or didn’t like you, or…” He clears his throat. “I really liked you, when I met you, I just… I didn’t want to hurt you.” He’s on the verge of tears. Bucky can feel the tightness in his chest. “I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

“Don’t,” Bucky says. His throat is closing. He can’t deal with this now. He didn’t expect to get so close so fast. Fuck.

“I’m sorry I was so distant,” he continues, like Bucky hadn’t even said anything. “I saw you and Nat hit it off and I was jealous. I was… hurt. And I lashed out. I won’t do it again, Bucky, I swear.” And fuck if his eyes are glassy and his lashes wet.

The only thing he can feel is crushing guilt. He’s hurting Steve. Beautiful, wonderful Steve is crying because of him.

Steve sounds as desperate as Bucky feels. “That’s not what I’m afraid of,” he mutters, looking down. Ashamed. Afraid.

He tilts his head to the side in confusion. “Then… what—”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts, “I haven’t… I haven’t had a relationship with anyone. Ever.” He takes a shaky breath. “I dated a few people in high school, yeah, but those were barely relationships and more… a mutual attraction. No emotions attached. The closest I’ve been to a relationship is fucking random people at bars.” He huffs a self-deprecating scoff, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s what I was going to do the night you first met me, actually.”

Steve just stares at him. The knot of Steve’s confusion and worry doesn’t loosen. He starts to wring his hands.

Bucky swallows and continues, “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never been close to someone like this. I don’t know what to do. And I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me,” Steve says immediately.

“You don’t understand,” Bucky says, pleading. Steve thinks that Bucky is afraid that Steve will be the one to walk away. No. That’s not what Bucky’s afraid of.

Steve says these things and he _means_ it. He means it because he’s an awesome soul, in the Biblical sense. Bucky can feel the goodness of Steve’s soul in his chest. Yeah, he’s stubborn, and yeah, he can be a total jerk sometimes, but Bucky knows that deep down, Steve’s intentions have always been good. He’s never done something intentionally malicious. He’s only ever tried to stop evil, never perpetrate it. Never take advantage of it.

Steve doesn’t even particularly like his job, but he does it because he’s the most unselfish person alive. He does it because he feels he needs to. He needs to help. He needs to save people. And when he can’t, he feels guilty. There is nothing purer than guilt.

“You’re so… good,” Bucky says. He’s struggling with words. “You’re so good. Everything you do is pure, and I’m just—everything I’ve ever done for the past years have been in my own interest. You took me here because you liked me, because you wanted to help me. I did it because I saw an opportunity and I took advantage.”

Bucky sighs, his chest still tight. “I’ll only fuck this up, Stevie. You wouldn’t—I know you wouldn’t. But I will. Whether it be because of my lack of experience or because of my fear or because you’re too good for me—”

“Stop,” Steve says.

Bucky gapes for a second before slowly shutting his mouth.

“I’m glad I met you,” Steve says. His voice is impossibly soft. His eyes are so full of adoration, Bucky knows that he had been blind not to see it before.

Nothing else in the world could possibly matter right now. Not when Steve is so close to him, just inches away. Just inches away.

Steve cradles Bucky’s face in his hands, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. The kiss Steve presses to Bucky’s lips is little more than a brush of skin, but it makes his breathing heavier even so. Steve is so—so tentative, so _gentle_ ; not in a way that makes Bucky feel like he’s fragile, but in a way that makes him feel like he’s _valuable_ , that he should be handled with care and respect. He hasn’t felt like that in such a long time, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Then he pulls away.

It’s not enough for him. Bucky’s hands clench into Steve’s shirt, then move to grasp his shoulders. He crushes his mouth against Steve’s with a desperation so great, he knows Steve doesn’t need to perceive Bucky’s emotions to understand what he’s feeling. Steve groans against his mouth, hands sweeping up Bucky’s back to ruck up his shirt. He grasps Bucky’s shirt right between his shoulder blades and pulls him closer, his other hand going to wrap around his waist.

Their emotions are so attuned to each other’s that it’s hard to tell whose emotions are whose—perhaps they’re just the same.

Bucky’s back hits the wall next to his door. His fingers comb through Steve’s hair, but it’s too short for him to get a good handful. Bucky groans into Steve’s mouth as he presses hard to Bucky’s front. His thumbs press into Bucky’s hipbones, his fingers tightening hard. Almost too tight, but, _fuck_. Bucky loves it.

Steve breaks the kiss first. Bucky’s afraid that it’s over, but then Steve just tilts his head to the side and leans down, pressing his open mouth against Bucky’s neck and sucking hard.

“Ah—!” He feels a rush of hot desire fill his chest. Is it Steve’s or is it his own? What does it matter, really?

If Steve pressed just a little bit closer… Bucky is so turned on he has to bite his lip from outright _moaning_ at the feel of Steve’s tongue and teeth sucking at his neck. He’s a bit more than half-hard in his jeans. He’s never been turned on so fast, he doesn’t even stop himself from sliding a hand down Steve’s chest, stomach, all the way to his waistband. He tucks his fingers under the waistband of Steve’s jeans and tugs just a little. So Steve knows what he’s after.

But he just grunts and pulls away.

Bucky’s afraid that he did something wrong, but when he sees how blown Steve’s pupils are, he just becomes confused.

A feeling of mischief— _Steve’s_ mischief, that’s for sure—sparks along next to his heart. Steve steps out of his embrace, straightens his shirt, and stares at Bucky for a long moment.

“Goodnight, Bucky,” Steve says, after a long silence.

Bucky stares hard at him. Is he seriously—? He can see the outline of Steve’s dick through his jeans. He’s hard as fuck, and Bucky is too, he doesn’t understand why they can’t go and work this out when Bucky’s room is just a few feet away.

And then Bucky understands. Steve is _teasing_ him. In other words, he’s being a dick like always. No begging will make him budge. No amount of seduction will break his resolve. The only thing left to do is comply.

He takes a deep breath and sighs it back out. Steve is still waiting for his answer.

“Goodnight, Steve,” he whispers back in reply.

Steve smirks at him before turning around and going up to the stairs, making his way to the third floor.


	15. The Relapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry :(

> **31 DAYS BEFORE**

Bucky can’t imagine that everyone reaches _true_ bliss in their lifetime—people throw the word around because it sounds pretty, because it offers an emotion that many covet. But real bliss is different; if people really knew what it felt like, they would treat the idea with a little more reverence.

Bliss is what it’s like to be with Steve. Not just as his boyfriend, but as his Bonded. Being Bonded to Steve gives an intimacy that they never could have achieved just by dating, or kissing, or having sex—it’s the closest anyone could be to each other, and it’s satisfying as hell.

Bucky comes downstairs every morning for the next week to find Steve already there at the breakfast bar, a huge grin on his face. He’ll come up behind Steve and plant a kiss on his neck, right below his ear, and Steve will smile. His happiness spreads right through his own chest to Bucky’s, seeping into him like ink in water.

Steve will kiss him gently on the mouth in the morning and during the day, but Bucky’s favorite times are near the evening and at night. That’s when Steve really allows himself to kiss Bucky senseless.

Bucky hops on the counter one night and sits there, watching Steve go back and forth through the kitchen. He’s bustling around, making dinner—he seems to almost be done. Bucky can be patient.

Even when he’s done, though, and the food is all ready to be served, he still ignores Bucky. Steve surprises him by getting out two plates and scooping food onto them to put on the table. And when he’s done that, he fills up two glasses with lemonade. And after that, he moves to get silverware.

He’s starting to get annoyed. Steve knows what he wants, he’s just being a dick. When Steve walks past him again, Bucky grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him roughly to stand in front of him. Steve stumbles a little but laughs as Bucky takes a handful of the front of his shirt. He wraps his legs around Steve’s middle, locking his ankles together.

“You’re a fucking tease, you know that?” Bucky growls. Then he takes Steve’s face in both of his hands and crushes a kiss against his mouth. He parts his lips just a bit when he feels Steve’s tongue graze against his skin. Steve leans forward and bites Bucky’s bottom lip, just a little, but it makes Bucky lose his fucking mind.

Steve pulls back only to chuckle against Bucky’s skin. “Was someone getting a little impatient?” he teases.

+++

Bucky sits in the backseat of a yellow cab. He puts his hand on the armrest and rests his head against the window. Night falls over Brooklyn like a blanket. Bucky’s just getting back home after spending the evening in Hell’s Kitchen with Natasha, Foggy, Matt, and Karen. Karen and Nat seem to be getting along well, and while Bucky had joked that them being friends meant them taking over the world, Bucky has no doubts that they could be a diabolical pair.

As Steve had said, Natasha doesn’t do relationships, because she’s moved on from Matt surprisingly quickly. It didn’t stop Bucky from making at least ten innuendos in their presence.

Bucky left earlier than everyone else, but the night is still a little late. Bucky told everyone that he had wanted to get home to Steve, but in reality, he had been a little unsettled by the square-jawed man in the corner of the room that had been looking at him all night. Bucky had smiled back once when he caught his stare, but the man didn’t smile back. He just sat there with a drink he didn’t touch all night, and kept a cold, calculating gaze on Bucky for about an hour and a half.

Bucky left pretty quickly after that.

The traffic is particularly bad today. The taxi has been idling for a spectacularly long time; Bucky frowns and tells that driver that he can just let him off here.

“We’re not to your destination, yet,” the cabbie says. He looks over his shoulder to look at Bucky.

“That’s okay,” Bucky says, smiling. “I want to walk.” He takes a few bills from his wallet and hands them to him. “Keep the change, yeah?”

Bucky opens the door before the driver says anything. The walk home is about three city blocks, but Bucky doesn’t mind. The night is warm, he realizes—he jogs out of the way and onto the sidewalk and begins in the direction of home.

He takes about two steps and stops short when he sees a sight that punches the air out of his chest.

Wanda’s store is shut down. A sign on the door reads, “Sorry, We’re Permanently Closed!” in cherry-red, cursive letters. Another, handwritten sign taped below it reads, “Thank you for your business.”

That’s… strange. Bucky pauses and looks in through the window. Tentatively, he moves over and tries the door.

It’s unlocked.

Swallowing his apprehension, Bucky goes inside, only to become more confused. It’s barren inside—there are no stones, but the crates that had previously held the stones are still scattered around the floor plan. One of the glass cases that held the more expensive stones is cracked.

He bristles with anxiety. Something is wrong. Wanda didn’t indicate that they were closing soon—there was no telltale sign, no friendly indication, no “going out of business” sale. Just a “closed forever” sign and a lot of confusion. Bucky’s especially confused as to why she left her display cases and the rest of the furniture.

Bucky walked by this place just a few days ago. He popped in and waved hello, told her how things were going with Steve. He even met her twin brother, a lean boy with white-blonde hair and endless energy. Everything was perfectly normal. But now it looks like the place was ransacked.

Bucky hears voices and perks up. Fuck, _fuck—_ he leaves quickly, changing into his familiar form on the street, and trots away before anyone can see.

+++

Bucky doesn’t mention the strangeness of the incident to Steve. He just goes home and eats a very late dinner with Steve, who kisses him goodnight before heading upstairs to his room.

Bucky remains down in the living room for a long while before finally summoning the strength to get up.

The days are so easy together. Bucky goes to sleep smiling, and he wakes up smiling, and he smiles when he’s with Steve, and he smiles when Steve presses his lips against his cheek. He’s happy when they’re together, and when they’re not, Bucky remembers and smiles to himself. He’s a big, sappy idiot, but it’s the best time of his life, being with Steve.

Bucky’s felt like his whole life has been a long series of nervous breakdowns, with brief stints of recovery before the relapse. Bucky feels like his life is completely on track—with Steve’s arrival in his life, his state of being has only improved. Steve taught him to defend himself, taught him how to use magic and expand his horizons. Steve taught him how to be in love again.

 

The morning comes and Bucky wakes up early, as he has done for the past several days. Bucky beats Steve downstairs and puts the coffee on, and before Steve can even get a drink, Bucky steals his mug and kisses him, morning breath and all.

Steve laughs and holds Bucky’s face in his hands. “You’re really something,” he says.

Bucky smiles. “Something good, hopefully.” He hands Steve his mug back.

Breakfast is a long, drawn-out affair. They eat, but then they talk, so it takes much longer than it should. Before they go downstairs to work on more potions, Bucky suggests that they watch a little TV. Steve is easily persuaded, and they spend a few hours on the couch together, watching a silly kid’s movie that Steve insists is wonderful. Bucky stretches over the couch in his familiar form, which makes Steve laugh. He sets his head into Steve’s lap and noses at him until Steve scratches his head.

Eventually, Steve tells him that they have to go downstairs and make potions, because Steve is running low on his Serum and needs more to last him the month. Bucky changes into his human form and follows Steve downstairs. Steve also makes it known that they’re going to train a little more in his fighting skills, because they’ve been neglecting that in favor of learning spells, and Steve doesn’t want him to get out of practice.

When they get down there, Steve starts to tend to the Serum, putting on some water to boil in the clay cauldron. Bucky only watches.

“Fuck, I forgot the gauze in my room,” Steve says. He looks back and forth between the door and the cauldron.

Bucky’s about to offer that he can go upstairs and grab it, before he realizes that he still hasn’t been in Steve’s room yet, due to the lock. He swallows down that information before saying, “I can take care of that,” tilting his head towards the potion. “You run up to your room and get what you need.”

“Are you sure?” he asks.

Bucky nods and Steve smiles. “Thanks, babe,” he says, and moves out of the way. Bucky takes over. Steve kisses him on the head before turning around and bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Bucky looks at the instructions for the Serum. The water is boiling, and he can make out the iron flakes bubbling around inside the cauldron. Steve already started on that, so he moves on ahead and starts adding the rest of the ingredients in order, stirring when necessary and simmering when needed. Steve already had most of the ingredients prepared for use, so it doesn’t take long to get going.

When Steve gets back downstairs, Bucky grins at him. He’s almost done with the potion — it’s surprisingly simple, and quick to make. He knits his brow in concentration as Steve steps off the last stair, thinking back. He feels like he forgot something.

He shakes his head to rid himself of the thought. He’s almost done. He didn’t forget anything.

Steve grins slyly at Bucky as he walks past. Bucky jumps when he feels Steve playfully smacks his ass.

“Dick,” Bucky mutters. Steve laughs, and for a moment they’re both filled with a golden happiness.

Bucky adds the last ingredient and stirs for three minutes. Then he waits as he feels the tingly sensation of magic crawl up his arm, changing the concoction from something mundane into something otherworldly, a feeling that he’s become familiar with over the past weeks.

But suddenly, his arm starts to hurt and spasm.

“Ow, fuck,” he mutters. He’s hit with a bout of confusion, and then panic. He tries to pull his arm back, but something makes him stop—the color. The color of the potion is off. Bucky squints at it.

He realizes too late that he did something wrong.

Steve’s voice cuts through his mind for a second — _Buck, get back!_ — right before the cauldron explodes.

+++

He was seven years old and climbing their tree in the backyard for the first time.

He had always liked to climb things—part of him wondered if he was going to be a cat or a monkey or a squirrel when he settled into his familiar form—and he was good at it. He was a pro at the monkey bars, a veteran to every climbing wall that he could get his hands on. At gym, he got the highest up the long ropes faster than anyone.

Part of him wondered why he hadn’t climbed this tree before. His mom told him not to, of course, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing these sort of things before.

Well. Maybe it was because his kite was stuck in one of the highest branches this time.

He sized up his route to the top in his head and got to climbing.

The first twenty feet wasn’t all that bad. There were easy footholds. The boughs were thick and stable. But the higher he climbed, the more difficult it became.

The bough snapped suddenly, and Bucky was in free fall.

He broke his arm in three places. With magic, his healing was almost instantaneous, but it hurt twenty times more to heal it than it had to break it. He screamed for a few seconds before promptly passing out.

+++

He perceives things in waves.

First wave: he realizes that he’s not standing anymore. He’s lying on the ground, but he can’t remember how he got there. Did he pass out?

Second wave: he realizes, with sobering clarity, that he’s in a lot of pain right now. It feels like his bones are breaking and mending and breaking again in an endless cycle of madness and suffering. His arm and side are burning like fire one moment, and then stinging with frostbite the next.

Okay, not just “a lot of pain.” He’s in the most excruciating amount of pain that he’s ever been in—he’s not sure how he’s even conscious right now, because he instantly can’t stop the tears that spill over his eyelids. His arm and side feels like he’s dipped it in acid. He feels like the skin on his arm is being peeled back, layer by layer, and then someone is dumping salt and alcohol on the tender, bleeding wounds. _That’s_ what it feels like.

Thirdly, he registers that he is screaming so loud that his vocal chords are grinding together painfully.

“Bucky!” Steve’s voice seems to be echoing towards him from the end of a long tunnel. “Buck—shit, fuck.”

His mind unhelpfully supplies that he’s never heard Steve curse before. He opens his eyes, realizing that they were closed, and looks at Steve hovering just above him. Only then does he register Steve’s panic in his chest.

“Hurts,” he whimpers. He cradles his arm closer to him, but it only exposes even more skin to whatever is burning him. “Help. Stevie.”

“You need to get up, Bucky,” Steve says. Bucky can tell that he’s trying desperately to keep the panic out of his voice, to be calm and commandeering, but his emotions betray him. Bucky starts to cry—not just tear up, but _cry_.

“I can’t,” he sobs. “Hurts.” He sounds anguished and pitiful to his own ears, but he can’t bring himself to be ashamed of his behavior. Not right now. He hasn’t cried in so long, he feels like a child again. He physically can’t take the pain. He’s going to pass out again.

“I know it hurts,” Steve says. His voice cracks. “But you’re lying in a puddle of the Serum—you need to move or it’s going to get worse. It’s a fucked-up potion, Bucky. That’s what’s hurting you so bad.”

 _He fucked up the potion. Oh, fucking Christ. He thought it was okay, but he messed up._ Bucky sobs so hard that it physically makes his chest and throat ache, he sobs so hard that his body shakes. He hurts so awfully, so completely, that he can’t think of anything else.

“Please” is all he can think to say. “Please, Stevie—”

Suddenly he feels Steve’s strong arms scoop him up bridal-style. “I’m taking you upstairs,” he huffs. There’s still panic in his chest, but he knows that Steve is trying hard to keep a level head. He starts moving quickly up the stairs, carrying Bucky like he weighs nothing. “We need to wash this off before—”

He stops that train of thought. _Before what?_ Bucky wants to ask.

They stop in Bucky’s room. Steve carries him to the shower in the adjoining bathroom and strips off his shirt, throwing it to the side. Bucky see that his shirt was in tatters, like it had been burned by fire. Steve systematically— _clinically_ —undresses the rest of him, throwing his jeans and boxers off in a corner. Then he moves to turn on the shower. He doesn’t even check to see if it’s too hot or too warm, just picks Bucky up and sets him down on his feet under the rushing water.

Bucky stumbles and slips, unable to stand by himself. The icy cold of the water shocked his system and woke him up just that last bit. He catches his balance, almost too late, on the shower door. He can’t even find it within himself to be embarassed that he’s standing naked in front of Steve, crying his eyes out while his own mistake burns the flesh off his body.

Steve swallows visibly and steps into the shower with him, clothes and all, holding Bucky up. His arm doesn’t hurt as badly under the water, which is a relief. He directs Bucky to stand so that his affected side and arm are getting the most of the spray. Bucky realizes, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that he can’t feel the water against his skin. His arm is completely numb.

Steve holds him by his hips. Bucky throws his good arm around Steve’s neck and rests against his chest, letting the water wash away the Serum.

The tears stop as the pain dissipates. He remembers learning that sometimes people were burned so badly that their nerves died so they couldn’t even feel it. Hopefully… hopefully that’s what happened. Maybe he’s fine. He can’t be paralyzed—that can't be the spurce of the numbness. It doesn’t sink in right away, really. There’s the distant idea that the potion did severe nerve damage, but it’s not a thought that threatens him presently.

After a few long minutes of silence, Steve shifts a little. Bucky repositions himself in his arms so he can keep his head pressed against his chest.

“Can I see?” Steve says quietly.

Bucky nods. Steve reaches down and takes Bucky’s arm. The skin is red and inflamed, splotches of purplish skin dotting all the way down to his fingertips.

“You can move it okay?” Steve asks. “Can you wiggle your fingers?”

Bucky tries to wiggle his fingers.

“Buck?” Steve is so worried that Bucky can taste it on his tongue. “Can you wiggle your fingers?”

“I am,” Bucky whispers. His voice breaks and he buries his head into Steve’s shirt.

Steve stares at Bucky for several long moments before biting his lip and looking off to the side. Bucky caught how his eyes filled up with tears.

“I think, um—it looks like your arm is paralyzed. We should… after a few more minutes in here, we need to get you to a hospital,” Steve decides. He drops Bucky’s arm and lifts a hand to stroke through his dark wet hair.

“No hospitals,” Bucky mumbles. He suddenly understands Steve’s pleas, every single time he said that to Bucky when he came home bloody. _No hospitals_. Bucky from four months ago would be furious with the Bucky he is now.

“Bucky,” Steve pleads. “I have to. You need it.”

“No,” Bucky insists. He burrows farther into Steve’s arms. The cold water splashing against his skin makes him shiver. “They’ll need to know what potion did this to treat me. You’ll get in trouble.”

Steve looks at him helplessly. “You could lose your arm, Buck.”

“It’s already gone.” Bucky swallows the lump in his throat that arises with the words. “I’ve already lost feeling. It’s too late.”

“Please,” Steve begs. “Don’t give up like that.”

“They’ll take you away,” Bucky says, voice shaking. “They’ll hurt you.” He starts sobbing again, deep sounds that are pulled out of his chest. He sounds pitiful. “Please. Don’t.”

Steve purses his lips together and says, “Okay, but I’m having someone come over to check you out, okay? Someone I trust. Don’t worry.”

Bucky nods in agreement, but he still can’t stop crying. The reality of it all is starting to register, and it’s painful — the relapse.

Steve grips his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, stroking his head, making shushing sounds. And then he remembers. He realizes—

“I forgot the salt,” he says, voice shaking. “That’s why it exploded—oh, God, Steve, I forgot the fucking _salt_.”

“It was my fault,” Steve insists. “I shouldn’t have let you do that. God, I just thought—I thought—fuck, Bucky, I’m so sorry.”

Bucky wants to tell him it’s not Steve’s fault that Bucky forgot the most necessary element of any potion, the most basic component of magic. Bucky wants to tell him that it’ll be fine and that it’s no big deal.

Except it is a big deal, and no one can fix it.


	16. Nerve Damage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes:  
> 1\. Pay attention to the time skips and you'll get a hint to what's coming next.  
> 2\. I think it's pretty obvious that I have no control over myself anymore, so I'm just going to post whenever I get a chapter done.  
> 3\. Thank you all for your lovely comments on the last chapter. While I got some "you just broke my heart" kind of comments, what I was really going for was for someone to call me Satan. Foiled again, I guess.

 

> **24 DAYS BEFORE**

Someone from Steve’s work comes in a few days later—a Dr. Banner.

Bucky’s pretending to sleep on the couch in the living room. He’s curled up in front of the TV while it plays something that he couldn’t give less of a fuck about, eavesdropping in on a conversation Banner and Steve are having.

“He told me that it was already too late. Because he’d already lost feeling,” Steve says.

He hears footsteps as the two of them enter the living room.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly. Bucky remains quiet, trying to keep his breath slow and even and his body loose and still.

“He’s asleep,” he tells Banner.

Bucky feels a flutter in his chest. Steve knows that he’s awake, but he’s covering for Bucky. Tears threaten him, but he remains still while he listens to Dr. Banner’s footfalls grow closer. There’s silence for a few moments while Dr. Banner steps forward and examines Bucky’s arm without touching. He lies on his side while his left arm—the affected arm—is resting along his body, fingers relaxed and slightly curled.

It’s a strange, strange feeling. When you touch your palms together, you feel it in both of your hands. But because Bucky’s left arm is completely numb, his side can feel how his arm rests against it, but his arm doesn’t feel how it rests against his side.

He waits for Dr. Banner to say something. He tries his hardest not to hold his breath, but the anticipation is killing him.

“Steve… those burn marks are very severe. I don’t know…” Dr. Banner sounds flustered and unsure.

Steve is silent for a long time. Digesting the information. “There has to be something.”

“You said he was making your Serum, correct?”

Steve is silent.

“Then there really isn’t anything we can do,” Banner says. His voice is soft and musical, but the words he’s saying are like knife wounds to his heart. “I’ve studied to effects of the Serum, Steve, and right now, there is no antidote. The most you can do is make sure that it stays contained to his arm and doesn’t spread.”

There’s a note of hesitation when Steve asks, “Will we have to amputate it?” His voice is soft and meek.

“If he doesn’t want it gone, then we might not have to. Magic can’t save that arm, Steve. The potion inside him would combat anything that you could give him to help it. It’s like a virus fighting antibodies. We’ll just have to deal with it as we go.”

“Doctor Banner,” Steve says, and he’s whispering now, maybe trying to make it so Bucky doesn’t hear him, but he does anyway. “I’m willing to do anything. _Anything_. Please.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Banner replies in the same hushed tone. “But, while magic can do a lot of amazing things, it has limits. No magic, legal _or_ otherwise, can save Mr. Barnes’ arm.”

There’s silence, and then a soft noise. And then another.

Then, “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“I know,” Steve mutters. His voice is thick and broken—he’s crying. Bucky feels his heart break for about the twentieth time in two days.

“Is he why you’ve been absent from work so much?” Banner asks. “The past few months?”

Steve doesn’t answer out loud, but Banner says, “I thought so.”

The two of them move back to the front hall, and Bucky strains to hear the conversation.

“Bruce, please,” Steve is saying. “You don’t understand the amount of pain he’s in. Could you look into it—please?”

Dr. Banner bristles and says, “I’m not promising anything, Steve. But I’ll look into it.”

It’s quiet for a second as Dr. Banner gathers himself. Then he says, “He’s a familiar. I resonated with him when I came in.”

Steve sounds guarded when he answers, “He’s very talented at making potions. You should see him.”

“It’s nice to know that there are more of us out there,” Banner says. “More of us familiars out there trying to make headway. Show the world we aren’t just sidekicks.”

Bucky feels his cheek twitch. If it were any other time, Bucky would have smiled at Banner’s answer. The door opens, and then shuts as Banner sighs and closes it before he can leave. “You’re Bonded to him, aren’t you, Steve?” he asks quietly.

Steve takes a second before saying, “Yeah, I am.”

Banner huffs in frustration. “Steve,” he says in a tone very much like the one that Steve uses with Bucky when he’s about to get a lecture.

“Don’t give me shit about it, Bruce,” Steve snaps. “It’s done.”

It’s quiet again, and then the door reopens. “I know it isn’t against the rules to be Bonded, Steve, but there’s a reason SHIELD looks down on it, with agents of your caliber.

Bucky’s mind slows. What? Was Steve’s job telling him not to Bond with Bucky? What kind of _fucked-up shit_ —

“Take care of yourself, okay?” Banner says. He sounds genuinely worried. “And take care of _him_. Basically the same thing, though, right?” The door closes. This time, Bruce Banner is on the other side of it.

Despite himself, Bucky feels his eyes start to fill with tears again. You would think that after so much crying, he’d eventually run himself dry. Apparently, that hasn’t happened yet.

Bucky hears Steve trudge back into the living room. He’s wearing socks on his feet, so his footsteps are soft, padding sounds. He stops right in front of the couch. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut even tighter.

“I know you’re awake, Buck,” Steve whispers.

The tear slips from his eye and he hastily wipes it away. The spell is broken. Bucky inhales a shaky breath and holds it. He opens his eyes and looks at Steve staring down at him. He looks twenty years older than he is.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve whispers, for the millionth time.

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Just shuts his eyes again.

+++

He knows he’s hurting Steve.

Steve just wants to be there for him, but Bucky is retreating further into himself than ever before. He can barely touch Steve without recoiling. Before where they were liberal with their hugs, their pats on the back, now Bucky can barely stand for their fingers to brush when he hands Steve his morning coffee.

He’s _hurting_ Steve. Steve hasn’t renewed the cloaking charm since the accident—two weeks ago. Bucky hasn’t changed into his familiar form since the accident, not even to sleep.

He feels stupid. Useless. He tried to do something new and he failed. Steve had told him it would be hard for a familiar. He should have listened.

Steve wasn’t trying to undermine his abilities, he was trying to keep him safe. And Bucky _yelled_ at him for it. He _screamed_ at him, _fought_ him. God, how could he have done that? How dare he, when Steve was just trying to prevent an event like this?

The tears slip from his eyes before he even realizes that they’ve gathered. He sniffles and wipes them away quickly, but Steve is already looking at him all concerned-like. Despite for all of Bucky’s pushing him away, he can still feel Steve’s emotions—namely, his worry.

“I’m fine,” he snaps, before Steve can say anything.

Steve deflates. “Sorry,” he mutters. He grabs his plate and moves out of Bucky’s space.

Steve’s guilt fills his chest and just makes him angrier. It’s not Steve’s fault that Bucky fucked up. It’s _not_ , but.

He’s in free fall.

It’s like he’s jumped out of an airplane thinking he had a parachute only to be horribly mistaken. Now he’s barreling to earth at breakneck speeds. Gravity is only pulling him down faster. And there’s literally nothing he can do about it but wait for the impact to kill him.

Despite the summer weather and the brownstone’s ancient air conditioning, Bucky only wears long-sleeved shirts. Button-downs are easier to get over his unresponsive arm, but it’s difficult to do the buttons with only one hand. Most of the times, he just wants to say “fuck it” and go without a shirt. Sometimes he does, and spends all day in his room.

+++

Two weeks later finds him drunk. Really drunk. Bucky isn’t usually one to spend all night in a bar alone, but he did it tonight—and not at Josie’s. He didn’t want to run into Matt or Foggy or Karen or God knows who and have to explain why he’s wearing leather gloves indoors in summer.

Going out in public was a mistake. Bucky was self-conscious the entire time, constantly tugging on his sleeve or looking over his shoulder. He felt like everyone was staring at him. Perhaps they were. Not because of his arm, but because he was acting shifty as hell.

He just hadn’t wanted to drink at home. Steve can’t get drunk because of his Serum, and that pretty much ruins the idea of drinking at all, for someone who’s twenty-six, so there isn’t much alcohol besides a half-bottle of shitty wine.

After a few drinks, though, he got friendly with the bartender. She rolled her eyes at his attempts at jokes, but Buck soon felt bad when he thought about Steve, alone at home.

Bucky hadn’t told him he was going out that night. He just left.

A rock drops in the pit of his stomach. He paid his tab and left for home.

The cab drops him off right in front of the brownstone. Bucky pays the guy and stumbles out of the car. He drives off as Bucky stands there in front of the building, trying to steady his footing.

He slowly makes his way up the front steps after he’s finished fumbling to get through the gate for several minutes. The door is unlocked, thankfully, because he’s not sure how long it would take for Bucky to find the right key in his inebriated state.

“Stevie,” Bucky says. Slurs. He’s grinning like a fucking fool. He walks over and leans on the countertop with his arm.

Steve looks at him. “You’re drunk.”

“Yep,” he says, popping the “p.”

Steve comes around the counter, careful not to run into Bucky. He grabs a clean glass and fills it with water.

“Drink,” Steve says, nudging Bucky’s arm with the glass. His voice soft.

Steve. Still trying to take care of him. If he was sober he’d lash out, get angry. But not tonight.

Bucky leans forward suddenly and kisses Steve.

The kiss is too wet and a little clumsy—he knocks his teeth against Steve’s hard, but wraps his good arm around Steve’s neck and won’t let him pull away. He kisses him with an urgency bordering on desperation—not the _close closer I need you now_ kind of way, but more of the _I’m fucking drowning_ sort of desperation.

Steve drops the glass. It doesn’t shatter, but the water spills all over the counter. Bucky runs his fingertips from Steve’s neck all the way down to his jeans. His hand hovers there for a moment, teasing over the button to Steve’s fly.

“Please fuck me, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs. “Make me forget, sweetheart. Baby, please, I bet you feel so good. I bet you fuck so nice—”

“Bucky,” Steve mutters. He shifts so that his arm comes between them, trying to push Bucky away, but he holds on tight to the front of his shirt. He can’t let go, Steve can’t do this now, Bucky _needs_ this—

“C’mon,” Bucky says, sharp breath right in Steve’s face. “C’mon, Stevie, fuck me. Fuck me right now.” He pulls Steve forward and uses his arm to hop onto the counter. A sly grin on his face as he growls, “Right here, honey.”

Steve’s voice is muffled as he tries to speak against Bucky’s mouth. “Buck—”

“I’ll make you feel so good.” Bucky kisses him once and then presses his mouth sloppily against Steve’s neck and whispers, “C’mon, _c’mon_ , please, _fuck_ me—”

“ _No_ , Bucky,” Steve snaps. He pushes away from Bucky roughly.

The rejection burns in his chest, turning first to anger and then to sadness. “You don’t want me,” he mutters.

“That’s not.” Steve huffs a frustrated sigh. “Bucky, you _know_ that’s not what I meant by this.”

Tears fill Bucky’s eyes without his permission—God, when is he going to go a day without crying? He drops his gaze to the floor as he slips from the countertop. He stumbles a little when his feet hit the hardwood, but he catches himself with his good hand.

“Just say it, Steve.” He sniffles, a truly pitiful creature. “You don’t want me anymore. Because of—” He gestures angrily to his left arm, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Because of this.”

He thinks he feels Steve’s heart break. “Baby, no…” he whispers. Steve steps forward and touches his hand gently to Bucky’s cheek with the back of his knuckles. Bucky would recoil from the touch, but he wants so badly to be wanted right now that he allows it. Then Steve rests his hand on his shoulder, giving a single, firm squeeze. “I _do_ want you. I want you like crazy. Buck, look at me.”

Bucky looks up at Steve through his wet eyelashes. He shakes with each breath he takes in, hair falling into his eyes; it’s getting long—he should cut it, but he doesn’t want to go out in public. Not after today.

“I want you all the time,” Steve whispers. He looks pained, Bucky feels Steve’s desperation within himself. “You’re beautiful, and nothing is going to change that, alright? Nothing.”

Bucky bites his lip. His eyes are shiny and Steve’s image is swimming in his vision, but he holds Steve’s gaze so he can finish his thought.

“But you’re hurting right now,” Steve whispers. “More than you’re willing to let on. I know it. And I’m not going to do this until you’re in a place where you want _this—_ ” He gestures between the two of them, “—and won’t regret it in the morning.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat and looks away.

“Okay?” Steve asks. His eyes are desperate to catch Bucky’s gaze again, but Bucky isn’t sure if he’ll be able to stand it—looking back into Steve’s eyes. So he just nods and gently removes himself from Steve’s grasp and goes upstairs to deal with this shit himself.

+++

For the first time in a long time, Bucky has a hangover when he wakes up.

He lies in bed for a long time, unwilling to get up. He knows that he should probably get up and face the day, but upon remembrance of last night’s events, he figures it’s become one of those days where he pulls on sweatpants and doesn’t wear a shirt and he lounges around his room.

He pulls on a pair of sweatpants that he finds on the floor and goes to sit on his bed. He’s just started reading his book when he hears the doorbell—someone’s at the front door. He looks up and the book that he’s reading falls out of his lap— _The Little Prince_. It’s the only thing he’ll read, now that he won’t touch his potions and spell books anymore.

(Another difficult thing to do with one hand: holding a book open. He’s managed it so far, but just when he seems to get comfortable, he has to set the book down to try to turn the page.)

He has a sneaking suspicion that he’ll have to see whoever is at the door, so he starts trying to put on a shirt. When he realizes that it might take too long to fight with the buttons, he opts for a t-shirt. He’s just gotten it on when he hears a knock on the door—and that’s when he realizes that the shirt isn’t long-sleeved.

He growls in frustration, about to put another one on, when there’s another, louder knock on the door. He sighs and answers it as he is.

“Natasha is here to see you,” Steve says, when Bucky gets the door open all the way. He looks at Bucky’s eyes, not even acknowledging the burns on his arm.

Bucky isn’t sure what he likes the most. While he wouldn’t exactly like it if someone screamed at the sight of his mangled arm, he’s not sure pretending it doesn’t exist is the best route possible either. But getting snappy at Steve won’t do good right now.

A gray cat trots into the room and jumps on Bucky’s bed. He remembers that that’s Nat’s familiar form and allows her to paw her way through his comforter and into a sitting position. Steve smiles faintly at the sight and then closes the door quietly behind him.

Nat remains lying on his comforter, not even acknowledging him. Bucky starts to get annoyed. He would cross his arms over his chest if he could. He settles for a pouty face as he climbs back onto his bed.

Just when he’s about to say something, she transforms into her regular self, lying on her stomach with her legs bent at the knee and in the air, like some teenage girl. She stares at him and then gives a self-satisfied smile.

Bucky isn’t as amused as he normally would be. He glares at her.

“What?” he snaps.

She raises an eyebrow at him and rolls off the bed and onto her feet. Graceful as the cat she is. “Hello to you, too.”

She looks gorgeous, as usual. He hair is loose around her shoulders and she wears a brown leather jacket. She puts her thumbs in her pockets and tries for a smile.

“Hi,” he says. He picks up his book again and ignores her.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” she says. “I missed you. It’s been—what? Five weeks since I last saw you?”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s mouth curls. Five weeks is about right, because that’s how long he’s had to live with his shit arm. “Thanks.”

“I got you, um—” She digs in her pocket and pulls out a small white candle. “It’s supposed to help with cleansing and healing. I know some people don’t believe in that, and I know that you probably don’t, either, but I thought it couldn’t harm anyone.”

Bucky stares at the candle before she finally takes his good hand and stuffs it in his palm. She curls his fingers around it and stares at him until he looks back at her.

And then he gets it. He gets the whole reason for her showing up here today. She doesn’t give a shit about giving him a gift. She’s trying to show him that even though that Bucky thinks he’s alone in this, that he’s the only person in the world, that Nat and Steve and Foggy and whoever the fuck else all care about him. They all care about him and he’s been so wrapped up within himself that he didn’t even realize that perhaps they were also hurting for him. With him.

“You’re being kind of a dick,” she says finally. Bucky’s ears burn red in shame. “Listen to me, James. Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn’t mean you get to treat everyone else like shit. Especially not the people that care about you. Especially not the people that love you and are trying to help you. Got it?”

Bucky looks up at her with big, weepy eyes. He holds the candle tight in his hand. He glances between her and it, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.

“It’s not fair what happened to you,” she continues in a softer voice. “I know that. I wish for nothing more to go back in time and stop it from ever happening. But the thing is, it still happened.”

She sits back down on the bed, right next to Bucky. He looks up at her, trying to blink back the tears. She rests a hand on his head and starts to stroke through his hair, even though she can probably feel how long, tangled, and greasy it’s becoming. She just pets him gently anyway.

“James,” she murmurs, “you’re a wonderful person. I’m sorry you have to go through this at all. But if you’re going to go through it, you might as well have a couple friends to back you up on your journey. But we can’t have your back if you keep pushing us away. Right? Don’t push me away, please. Don’t push _Steve_ away.’

Bucky’s head drops as tears spill out of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don’t apologize to _me_ , James. You should be talking to Steve.” Nat holds Bucky’s head to her chest. “He’s so worried about you. He hasn’t been to work since it happened, you know. We tried to have him come in and he was so flustered and distracted that we sent him right back home.”

Bucky buries his head into Nat’s shoulder. “I know,” he whispers.

She drops her hand from his hair and rubs his back in slow, soothing circles. “Steve called me over here. He was a little worried you hated him.”

His head pops from her shoulder so quickly it would almost be comical in any other situation. “What?” he sputters. “Why would I—”

“You know he blames himself, right?” She gives him a hard look. “That’s the kind of person he is.”

“But he didn’t do anything wrong,” he protests.

“ _I_ know he didn’t, but did you tell _him_ that?”

Bucky’s about to say _yes, of course_ , until he realizes that he hasn’t. He hasn’t said anything to Steve in the past couple days unless it’s been to snap at him over little things or get angry at him for trying to help. Or, in yesterday’s case, try to fuck him.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “No. I haven’t.”

“ _James_ ,” Nat scolds. She crosses her arms over her chest, scowling at him.

“I didn’t mean to!” Bucky says defensively. “He apologizes for fucking everything, but I didn’t think he would really believe—”

Nat holds a hand up to stop him. “Don’t take this up with me, James. You need to talk to Steve about it, not me. He’s the one hurting. Especially since the two of you are Bonded.”

She gives Bucky a pointed look. Bucky gulps and nods.

They talk for a few minutes longer. Mostly Nat asking him how he’s adjusting, what he needs help with. She tells him that she’ll look into some things that could possibly help him, like little devices or spells or potions. She leaves soon, though, having filled her reason for showing up in the first place. Bucky knows that he’ll never find anyone else on the planet like her.

 


	17. Feet First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some shameless self-promotion: [My tumblr.](http://notbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/) I post mainly Marvel, with plenty of Steve/Bucky.

> **THE NIGHT BEFORE**

Even though things weren’t magically okay, Bucky understood that he had been wrong to treat Steve in such a way. He has to stop acting like a dickhead and make things right.

A sinking feeling in his stomach tells him that maybe, even now, it’s too late to reconcile his relationship with Steve. Sure, they’re Bonded, and they probably won’t stop that anytime soon, but what about their romantic relationship? What about their _friendship_?

Butterflies fill his stomach as he makes his way upstairs. He heard Steve go to his room a half hour ago. He climbs up, feet slow and heavy, wringing his hands. He gets to Steve’s room at the end of the hallway and stands there for a few seconds before sighing. He raises his hand and knocks three times. The sound is just barely there.

Steve opens the door almost immediately. He looks shocked to see Bucky standing out there. Bucky wants to say, _what are you so surprised for? Forgot I lived here or something?_

Instead he just swallows his nerves and says, “Steve?”

“Yeah?” Steve steps out into the hallway, his voice soft. He shuts the door behind him. It closes with a _click_.

There’s really no other way to start. Steve already can feel Bucky’s nervousness and his regret, so he might as well jump right into it.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I’ve treated you like shit the past few days, and… I shouldn’t have. You didn’t deserve that. You were just trying to help.”

Steve stares at him. A small smile flickers across his lips. “It’s okay, Buck. I would be angry, too.”

“Angry that I lost my arm or angry because you think it was your fault and I’m blaming you?” Bucky says. The words pour out of him without his permission and Steve stares at him without comprehending it at first. When he realizes what Bucky’s said, he starts to back up towards his room, like he’s going to run back inside and close the door.

“Bucky…” he says. His eyes are pleading. _Don’t make me do this,_ they say.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezes it tight. “It wasn’t. You didn’t do anything.”

“Buck, I shouldn’t have even asked you to do it in the first place.” That stubbornness is returning, but the fire isn’t. Steve doesn’t want to fight him—he’s just guilty. He wants to be forgiven, relieved.

Bucky stands up straighter and says, “ _I_ asked to make it, Steve. _I_ did, not you.” He makes his voice firm, but it doesn’t have the same effect as when Steve does it. “That was _me_ , Steve. I thought I could handle it and I made a rookie mistake.”

Steve’s guilt starts to lessen—Bucky feels it let up, if only just a little. He stares Steve down for a moment longer before he whispers, “It wasn’t your fault, Steve.”

Steve swallows, his eyes turning misty. He buries his head into Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m—”

“Don’t,” he whispers.

The idea that Steve is getting emotional over Bucky really strikes a chord within him. Bucky’s seen Steve come home covered in blood, has seen Steve filled with righteous anger. He’s seen Steve fight for what he thinks is right. He’s seen Steve down and out, has seen him panicked and afraid. But he’s never seen Steve cry. He’s _never_ seen Steve cry.

He lifts his hand, grasps Steve’s chin with his fingers so that he’ll look him in the eye.

“It’s okay,” Bucky whispers. He lifts his right hand to stroke through Steve’s hair. “I’m not mad anymore.”

“I just want you to be okay,” Steve says. “I want you to. To have a good life. You’ve gone through so much already, I just. I.”

“Steve,” He pulls back so Steve has to look at him. He looks him straight in the eye and says, “I _do_ have a good life. And yeah, I’m down one arm, and that might make it more difficult, but that’s not gonna fucking stop me from having a good life. Yeah, it may not be the easiest, not by a long shot, but it’s still good. As long as you’re with me… it’s still good.”

Steve whimpers and clutches Bucky’s shirt. He says, “I love you.”

Bucky doesn’t even hesitate. He says, “I love you, too.”

There’s no gentle build-up this time. They crash against each other, molding together like two waves colliding in the ocean. Steve’s mouth is against his and Bucky’s mouth is against his and Steve is gripping both of Bucky’s arms, pulling him closer.

Bucky’s back hits the wall when he uses his good arm to pull Steve against him. He needs Steve right now, he _needs_ him—not in the way like before. Not like when he was drunk, when he was looking for a way to stop pitying himself.

No. This is different. This is so different.

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist and hoists him up. Bucky gasps and wraps his legs around Steve’s hips.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please, Stevie.”

Steve kisses his forehead, then the corner of his eye. Working a pathway down. His cheek—one kiss, two, three—the corner of his mouth. And then he stops.

Bucky waits with bated breath. He leans forward a little to catch Steve’s mouth with his own. The kiss is gentle, soft. Sweet.

Bucky’s had a lot of people, and he’s kissed even more. And while he’s kissed Steve a lot, this kiss still is definitely Bucky’s favorite kiss of them all—every person, every kiss with Steve—it’s his favorite.

It doesn’t grow in heat. Not for a while, at least. Steve pulls away when Bucky’s hand tightens in his hair, a little groan slipping from Steve’s mouth.

“Bedroom?” he asks. His voice is barely more than a gruff whisper. Bucky smiles and nods, and Steve carries him into his bedroom and lets him slip to his feet in the middle of the floor.

It dawns on Bucky that this is his first time in Steve’s room. While a little bit of him feels like that’s of interest, maybe he should look around, the sane part of his brain tells him that Steve is starting to unbuckle his pants, which is definitely the more important of the two events.

Steve unbuckles his belt and slides the strip of leather out of the loops. Bucky almost swallows his tongue because of the look that Steve’s giving him.

“Fuck,” Bucky breathes. Steve smirks at his reaction, drops the strip of clothing, and starts working on Bucky’s own belt. He gets it undone quickly and then pops the button open on his fly. He drags the zipper down without even breaking eye contact.

Bucky tries to kiss him but Steve leans away before he can make contact. He whines, which makes Steve smirk.

“I want to do something,” Steve whispers. He walks Bucky backwards until the back of his knees hit the bed. He sits down hard as Steve drops to his knees in front of him. 

Bucky groans loudly at the sight of him. He runs his fingers through the blond hair, looking down as Steve tugs his jeans down. The head of his cock peeks over his underwear. A feeling of lust, _desire_ hits him like a freight train—Steve’s lust.

“I haven’t done this for a while,” he warns. “But I want to.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna tell you no,” Bucky grins. Steve chuckles.

Steve kisses his stomach, right above the waistband of his boxer briefs. A fire starts in the pit of his belly.

He slowly pulls down Bucky’s underwear, a dragging pressure that makes Bucky exhale sharply.

Steve takes Bucky’s length in hand, gripping the base tightly. He kisses the cockhead, drags his tongue down the underside at a maddeningly slow rate. His eyes never leave Bucky’s.

“Oh, fuck,” Bucky breathes. “Oh—”

Steve’s tongue circles the tip. He sucks lightly at the head before taking him completely into his mouth, taking Bucky completely off-guard at the sensation.

“Stevie,” Bucky breathes. “You gotta—”

Steve takes more of him into his mouth, cheeks hollowing out as he sucks hard. His mouth is so warm and tight, holy fuck, and his eyes are fluttering shut like he’s been dying for it just as badly as Bucky has been. His hand covers what he can’t reach, holding just tight enough. Bucky wants this to last, but he’s so turned on it’s a miracle he’s gone this long. His hand moves uselessly around—petting through Steve’s hair, grasping his shoulder, brushing the back of his neck.

Steve pulls off with a pop, and Bucky groans at the loss of Steve’s mouth. But it’s just a second later when Steve is licking the sensitive tip again, sucking it lightly.

“I thought you said it’d been a while,” Bucky jokes weakly. Steve grins at him before taking him down again.

“Steve,” he groans. He’s moving perilously close to the edge. “Steve, stop, I’m gonna…” He weakly paws at Steve’s shoulders to push him off, but Steve just bobs his head faster, sucks harder. Bucky moans, breaths getting heavier—it’s too much—and he comes with barely so much as a warning. Steve swallows it all.

Bucky slumps and closes his eyes, but Steve is still there, suckling and licking lightly at Bucky’s cock even when it gets soft. He grunts and pushes Steve off when he gets too sensitive.

Steve stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Good?” he whispers. He puts his hands on Bucky’s hips to steady him.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes. “Holy fuck. You’re good at that.”

Steve smirks, cocky as fuck. Bucky wants to reprimand him for his smugness, but honestly, Steve has a right to act like it.

“Take this off,” Steve says, tugging at Bucky’s shirt. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Well, fucking hell. Bucky gives a nervous chuckle. “Help?” he asks, in reference to his shirt.

Steve looks over at him he feels vulnerable; more vulnerable than he felt while he stood outside a bar with a handsome stranger who protected him from the slurs of angry men, more vulnerable than the day he realized that he was jealous of Peggy fucking Carter over the man who is kneeling before him now. He’s stripped himself down to his bones, everything is on display. He wants help.

Steve touches him with purposeful actions, eyes never leaving Bucky. He doesn’t give Bucky a pitying glance or a guilty look. He just brings both of his hands to the top button of Bucky’s shirt and undoes it. And then the next one.

A fire starts again in the pit of his stomach, burning hot and slow. He can’t stop looking at Steve’s face, even when he’s finished unbuttoning his shirt and it slips off his arms. Steve takes it and throws it to the floor.

Bucky’s first instinct is to feel self-conscious. His arm is mangled, reddened and covered in burn scars. The skin itself feels strange—soft, hairless, and bumpy—but Steve doesn’t even care.

Steve’s body is riddled with scars, too. Bucky’s seen them before, but he’s never been allowed to touch them before without overstepping boundaries. He smooths fingers over every one of them—some, he can even remember patching up or cleaning. Others, like the scar running down the middle of Steve’s chest, are too old for him to remember.

It finally occurs to him that maybe Steve feels self-conscious about his body, too. The apprehension that he feels may not be entirely his own.

“You’re gorgeous,” he whispers. Steve blushes.

“You really know how to flatter a guy,” he says, a little smile on his lips.

“I’m serious,” Bucky says. He runs his good hand down Steve’s chest. “God, Steve. Look at you. You’re fucking beautiful. Holy—”

Steve interrupts him with a kiss before he can even finish his thought. “God, I love you,” he says against Bucky’s mouth. “Love you so bad.”

Bucky kisses him again before he can get another word in. Their tongues slide together and Bucky can taste his own release on Steve’s tongue.

He pushes Bucky down on the bed. He’s spread-eagle, looking up at Steve with desire in his eyes and lust in his chest. It’s too soon for him to get hard again, but he’s definitely turned the fuck on.

“For the record,” Steve says, walking around the side of the bed, “you’re not so bad-looking yourself.”

Bucky grins. “I’m cute as hell, thank you very much.”

Steve grins back and climbs on the bed, bracketing Bucky’s hips with his knees. “That, you are,” Steve whispers. He leans down and kisses him again, slow and hot. Bucky can feel Steve’s cock pressing against his stomach through his boxers. Bucky reaches downward and starts palming it through the fabric.

“ _Oh_ ,” Steve breathes into Bucky’s mouth.

He’s filled with a smug satisfaction similar to Steve’s earlier, and starts palming his cock harder, eventually sliding his hand past the waistband and wrapping his fingers around his length. Steve kisses him harder, pushing his head into the pillow with the force of it. Bucky sucks hard on his tongue.

His cock is wet from leaking precome, and it’s a nice, sturdy thickness. Bucky moans into Steve’s mouth. God, he wants it. He fucking wants it.

Steve pulls away from Bucky’s mouth. He crawls off of Bucky, pulling off his boxers and then rooting through the drawer of his bedside table.

He pulls out a condom and a little bottle of lube. Bucky watches him intently, spreading his legs so Steve can settle back between them.

They don’t talk, they just _do_. Steve slicks up his fingers and then moves his hand down to Bucky’s ass. He rubs a slick finger around his hole before pressing the tip of his finger in.

Bucky goes limp at the feeling of Steve’s fingers working him open. _Inside_ of him. _Steve’s_ inside of him.

He moans as Steve moves up to the knuckle, then his hand is pressing up against Bucky’s perineum. Steve brushes that spot just inside of him and Bucky squirms, groaning with pleasure. Steve fucks in and out, making sure to hit that spot as much as he can. Steve slides in a second finger, fucking him faster. Bucky squirms, muscles spasm around Steve’s hand. His cock is starting to harden again at the feeling of Steve’s fingers inside of him.

Steve starts to add a third, and Bucky has to stop him so he can adjust. Steve moves slower, and the stretch adds a layer to the pleasure. Sweat dots his forehead, his limits starting to get pushed.

Eventually Bucky adjusts to the feeling of three fingers. The stretch feels amazing, and the fullness that he gets is unimaginable. Steve curls his fingers and hits his prostate and Bucky grasps onto his shoulder.

“Fuck me,” he whimpers. “Please.”

“Yeah?” Steve says. Bucky sighs and nods.

Steve pulls his fingers out and wipes them hastily on the bed before grabbing the condom. He tugs it open with his teeth and rolls it on his cock quickly. He gets more lubricant to stroke over the latex and then leans over Bucky, one hand by Bucky’s head, the other wrapped around his cock as he guides it to Bucky’s ass.

As soon as he feels Steve sinking into him, he groans, shifting a little so he can get it in deeper, faster. Steve’s hell-bent on going slow, but Bucky just wants him inside him. He lifts up a leg to wrap it around Steve’s waist, urging him to go faster.

Steve’s mouth drops open as he bottoms out. Bucky’s huffing out breath after breath, unable to calm himself. He can’t control himself, and it just gets worse when Steve starts to thrust shallowly into his ass.

All he hears, all he knows is Steve. He’s all around him. Steve leans down so his elbows frame Bucky’s head, their faces close so they can kiss while Steve fucks him. Every once in a while, Steve will hit his prostate and Bucky pulls away to moan.

Steve’s breath is labored, and his eyes are right above Bucky’s face. He can’t avoid looking at him. Not like he’d want to, though.

Bucky reaches up with his hand and pulls Steve into a quick kiss. He wraps his arm against him, pulling Steve’s head into his shoulder. He feels Steve suck the skin there a little, making him gasp.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

Steve pulls back out of Bucky’s hold, a smile on his face and kisses him back. “I love you, too.” He leans down and kisses Bucky’s neck quickly before he straightens up and wrangles Bucky’s legs over his arms, calves swung up and over his arms. He leans in to kiss Bucky again, bending him in half. He cries out suddenly, the change in position causing Steve to hit his prostate over and over with every thrust.

He breathes heavy into Steve’s mouth with each thrust. Steve grins against his lips, starting to fuck him faster.

“Oh—oh God,” he cries. “Steve, _f-fuck_. Right there. Fuck, _Steve_ , ‘m gonna come.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, _taunts_.

“ _Yeah_ , fuck, please please—”

Steve’s arms drop his legs back to the bed. His hand moves to Bucky’s cock and starts jerking him quickly in time with his thrusts. After half a dozen pulls, Bucky’s coming all over himself, a strangled cry pulled from his throat.

Steve fucks him through it, building up speed until he freezes suddenly. Bucky knows he’s coming in the condom. He groans, head slumping. After a moment, he pulls out, ties the condom and throws it in the general direction of the trashcan.

Bucky is still breathing hard, but Steve just crawls next to him and collapses by his side. He tugs Bucky into his arms and Bucky lets him, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder.

He falls asleep in Steve’s arms.

+++

There aren’t many times that Bucky wakes up expecting someone to be in bed with him.

There’s sunlight streaming in through Steve’s window. It hits Bucky right in his face, pouring warmth over him like a summer rain. He lets out a content sigh as he shifts in the soft, body-warm bedsheets.

Eyes still closed, he reaches his hand out in the sheets, searching for the body that should be next to him, only to find that Steve’s side of the bed is cold.

That’s when he opens his eyes. A childish part of him thinks that Steve should have stayed until Bucky woke up, but looking at the clock, he realizes that it’s almost eleven in the morning. Steve is usually up at five.

Waking up a little more now, he starts to register his surroundings. He’s never really been in Steve’s room before. There are things in here that the other parts of the house lack—like a sense of individuality, of personalization. The rest of the house is decorated like a picture in a magazine, but Steve’s room is all his own. There’s an art print of Monet’s _Waterlilies_ on the wall. A desk, topped with half-finished sketches, watercolor paintings, and neatly filed manila folders. Shoes are lined up near the door; there are only three pairs—brown leather shoes, black leather shoes, and Nike running shoes. The walls are painted blue—softly, not shocking, not electric blue, not baby blue—but a blue that feels light. There’s a record player in the corner with vinyls leaning against the wall. Picture frames on basically every available surface, of friends, places he’s been. His mother.

It’s a little cramped, a little cluttered, but it’s exactly Steve.

There’s soft music playing over the stereo in the living room. It floats and weaves through the air, reaches him on the third floor. Bucky tips his head back and closes his eyes, just listening for a moment, before standing and stretching.

He makes his way downstairs, smelling tea instead of coffee this morning. He spots Steve making breakfast at the stove. He smiles when he sees Bucky and turns off the heat, going to meet Bucky halfway. He kisses him gently on the lips for several moments before pulling back.

“Breakfast is ready,” he says.

Bucky follows, completely and utterly in love with this man. He _adores_ Steve.

Steve prepares him a plate and sets it down in front of him when he sits at the breakfast bar. The music continues to play in the background, soft and slow. Bucky starts to eat, and is only halfway through the meal when Steve stands up and moves over to be next to him.

“Dance with me,” Steve says, a small smile forming on his lips. He holds out his hand for Bucky to take.

Bucky starts to smile as well. “Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Rogers?” he asks, taking Steve’s outstretched hand, allowing Steve to help him stand.

“It’s a possibility.” Steve’s smile turns to a smirk. “But who’s to say?”

Bucky grins as Steve pulls him close. Steve rests one hand on Bucky’s waist, and Bucky takes his working hand and puts it on Steve’s shoulder. Steve takes Bucky’s other hand in his own and they dance like that, in the kitchen, turning slow circles, listening to the mellow, soft music. It only takes a few seconds for Bucky to lean close and rest his head on Steve’s shoulder, breathing easy for the first time in years.

After a few songs, Bucky leans up, moving his hand from Steve’s shoulder to his neck. He pulls Steve down until their mouths meet. Steve parts Bucky’s lips with his tongue and the kiss deepens but stays just as sweet as ever. Bucky meets all of Steve’s movements, curling his hand around the back of Steve’s neck tighter and tighter. He doesn’t want Steve to ever move away.

Steve kisses Bucky with shyness, like he’s afraid if he’ll be too forward that he’ll scare Bucky off. He wants to tell Steve that he could never scare him off. Never.

He grabs onto the back of Steve’s neck, tighter, more desperate. He wants Steve as close to him as possible. He wants him so badly, he just doesn’t know what he’d do without Steve’s presence to calm him.

Bucky remembers hearing a statistic that most True Bonds that actually do Bond usually end up in romantic relationships with each other. But Bucky can’t imagine anyone’s love being as deep as his with Steve’s. He can’t imagine anyone being like them.

“I love you,” Bucky says, leaning his head against Steve’s chest.

“I love you, too,” Steve murmurs. “I love you so bad, Buck, you don’t even know.”

Bucky smiles a little into Steve’s shirt. “I think—”

But just then, the door flies off the hinges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading. This work is coming to a close, but the story is definitely far from over. Thank you for your comments and kudos, and I hope you subscribe to the series or to me in general so you can get updates and notifications. You guys are the best!


	18. Wolf Spiders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has some torture and interrogation, as will the next one.

The sound of the door breaking startles him. Steve shoves Bucky behind him, tentatively looking into the front hall to see what the fuck is happening.

In a second, they’re swarmed. Five men wearing black clothing and holding guns flood into the room. Steve shoves Bucky to the side and Bucky can’t hear anything for the blood rushing in his ears, but he sees Steve yelling, _“Go, Bucky! Run!”_

Steve rushes towards them. Bucky finally gets to see Steve’s combat moves in action, and while Steve engages five of them in a fight. He knocks out one in a second, grabbing his gun and landing a punch on his face, right between the eyes. Bucky hears the sickening crack of his nose breaking.

Bucky runs down the hallway and makes it to the door. The second he steps out, though, he knows he should have gone upstairs. Four men are waiting for him outside.

In hindsight, it was obvious.

Wasn’t this the kind of thing that Steve has been warning Bucky about since the beginning? This was why he needed to know how to defend himself. This was why he needed to be able to change into his familiar form.

Of course, back then, Steve had assumed that he would have all working limbs. The second Bucky tries to change into his familiar form so he can run off, he faceplants into the ground as his front leg gives out. Two men grab him—one taking his front legs, and the other taking his back legs. Bucky squirms and changes back into his human form, hoping that the sudden change in weight will give him a chance to escape, but they don’t let him go.

There are spectators on the sidewalk, people screaming and some are rushing forward to help. But the other two guards draw their guns on anyone who go near. They all back away, hands in the air.

 _Fuck_.

Steve hadn’t renewed the cloaking charm in weeks after Bucky’s accident… It was inevitable that they were going to be caught. Bucky’s mind wanders back to the man that had been staring at him in Josie’s bar, those weeks ago. Wanda’s shutdown store. Are they connected to Bucky’s position now?

He feels sick to his stomach. They shove him into the back of a black van. His hands and ankles are tied with zip ties. The plastic digs uncomfortably in his skin. They shut the door, climb into the seats up front, and they’re off.

Bucky wonders how Steve is faring. He can feel his panic, but that doesn’t really mean much in this situation.

The van tosses and turns and Bucky has no way of holding himself up comfortably so his head doesn’t smack against the floor. He wants to wail but his mouth is covered.

There’s a blindfold around his eyes. He tries to count the turns but he gets mixed up and loses the trail about halfway through the ride.

They lead Bucky inside—he can tell it’s inside, because the second he walks in, an overpowering rush of cold air hits his face.

+++

The cell they dump him in is bright white. The window is two-way, so Bucky can see people watching him. The cot has no sheet on it, no pillow or blanket. They gave him gray clothes, probably so he’d stand out from the walls behind him.

That first day, he wastes his energy slamming on the window and pacing around the room, looking for something, anything, that could help him out. He finds nothing.

He gets fed twice a day through the little slot in the door. The first time they fed him, they opened up the door and handed it to him, but then Bucky attacked the guard, demanding answers, and, well. Now he gets food through the slot.

Through the window, Bucky sees a logo that he vaguely recognizes—Strike. 

It confuses him, because for all he knows, Strike is a tech company. StarkTech’s biggest rival, really. The logo looks similar to Strike’s, but several differences tell him that it is not exactly the same thing. Instead of an eagle with two feathery wings, a skull replaces the eagle’s head. The wings look more like tentacles. Instead of STRIKE, it reads HYDRA in huge, red letters.

What does Strike—or Hydra, it seems—have to do with Steve or his work?

It gives him a sinking feeling. Perhaps this is all bigger than he thought it was.

Sometimes he changes into his familiar form for the hell of it. It’s difficult to walk with his numb leg. It’s not like he can hold it up and limp, considering he has no motor control over it whatsoever.

Day after day, he has nothing to do but think. Think about Steve, feel Steve’s faint emotions, wonder what he’s doing, what he’s thinking. If he was captured, if he’s okay.

He feels completely caged in. He paces his cells because there’s nothing else to do.

Years on the run has made him look at himself like an object. Steve was able to pull him out of that mindset, but he’s slipping back into it now; he needs to. It’s how Hydra sees him. It’s how he must see himself if he wants to survive.

An escape plan is impossible. Bucky doesn’t know the layout of the building. The best he can do is figure out what Hydra is planning on doing with him.

 _Bait_ is the first thing that comes to mind. If they didn’t capture Steve, they could be trying to lure Steve in so they can take him out. But they have to know that Steve’s agency is smarter than that; they wouldn’t let Steve go back into the fight, guns blazing, when he’s too close to the situation. Or maybe that’s what they’re hoping for—that Steve will try to rescue Bucky anyway, _without_ the support from his work.

It’s a possibility.

There’s a loose screw in the toilet seat. With a little wiggling, he manages to pull it out. With it, he scrapes off some of the white paint and draws. He thinks he’s found himself a grand new pastime, but when he wakes up the next morning, it’s gone.

This fills him with inexplicable amounts of anger. He’s so fucking _bored_ , he has nothing to do. He’s going to fucking stick his head in the toilet and drown himself if this is the way things are going.

He gets up and slams on the windows. A few attendants outside jump in surprise.

He screaming at them, angry as fuck. He just _wants something to do, fuck, please, I have nothing to fucking do_.

It’s not even an exaggeration. If he has to spend any more time with his thoughts, it’s not going to end well.

The attendants stare at him and then look away. Bucky stares hard at them before tears threaten his eyes. He slides down the wall into a sitting position. Then he wraps himself up into ball and stares at nothing.

 

There’s a red crayon on the tray with his next meal. Bucky laughs hysterically at the sight. For a second he thinks of drawing a sigil and thinking of a spell to get him the fuck out, but then remembers that he has to draw those with chalk if he wants it to work.

So Bucky draws home. He draws the stairs descending downwards from the second floor to the front hallway. He draws the view from the bay window in the library and the flower boxes that sat in the front windows. The vines that snaked their way up the brick. For a moment, he forgets where he is, and he’s content.

+++

The white walls remind him of the white-out blizzard he’d gotten stuck in with his sister when he was young. They were in the car when it had broken down miles from their home. There was no heat and no chance of anyone passing through for hours. Bucky was cold and Rebecca was young and small. She would die if they didn’t get help.

Eventually, after trying to huddle together for warmth, Rebecca became unresponsive. Bucky had panicked so much he’d turned into his familiar form. He didn’t know what to do—he was a kid, in his familiar form, unsure of whether to leave his sister and get help or drag her through the snow. Both had their risks—if he left his sister here, there was the chance that she would get buried and there wouldn’t be any way to find her, and if he dragged her to get help there was the chance that Bucky would get tired and pass out without ever reaching help.

He chose the latter. He dragged his sister through white-out conditions, using his canine strength, for half a mile in the knee-deep snow.

Bucky dragged his sister to the house of a middle-aged couple. He scratched at the door until someone finally answered.

He can’t remember the rest of the night. He woke up wrapped in three blankets and a high fever. His fingers and toes both had frostbite—not too serious, but he could see blisters starting to appear on his fingers.

That was the last time he had changed into his familiar form, until Steve had taught him how.

+++

Two guards come to his door, many days after he arrived there. Bucky looks up, because he’s sure that it isn’t time for him to eat. They open the door—one man, he recognizes as the guy that was staring at him in the bar that night. It seems so long ago.

How many days have passed since he got in here? His mind feels muddled and he can’t remember.

They take him by both of his arms and lead him down a hallway. There’s a lump in his throat.

He wonders if Steve can feel the intensity of his anger.

They dump him in a dinky little room. It has a lamp and a table with the legs bolted into the floor and two chairs. They bring him to the chair farthest from the door and force him to sit down. They handcuff his hands to the table.

“You’re going to be asked a few questions,” one of the Hydra agents say.

Bucky remains silent. At Bucky’s lack of an answer, the approach him slowly. One grabs Bucky’s head. He thrashes around, trying to loosen their grip. But Bucky’s head is immobilized and they wrench his jaw open. The one not holding his head reaches into his pocket and takes out a vial. He pours all of its disgusting contents into Bucky’s mouth.

“That was truth serum,” one of them says, “in case you felt like lying.” They release his head and Bucky’s jaw snaps shut. He wants to cry, but he knows that doing so won’t be good in front of these two assholes.

A woman comes in, a clipboard in her arms. The two mean leave the room, but Bucky can see them sticking around and guarding the door through the door’s window.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes,” the woman says.

He remains silent.

“I’m just going to ask you a few questions okay?”

He purses his lips together.

She looks down at her clipboard.

“How old are you?” she asks.

Bucky’s jaw tightens. “Twenty-two,” he says. 

“Date of birth?”

“March tenth.”

“Do you have any special skills?” she asks. Her hand is wrapped around a little remote of sorts, one that has just a small, red button.

“Potions,” he says, the words bursting from his mouth without his permission. “I can work with potions. I know the basics,” he continues. He wants to tear his mouth off of his face.

“Good, good,” she mutters, writing down his answer on her clipboard. “Anything else?”

“Self-defense fighting,” he says. His hands clench into fists on the table. His wrists are handcuffed uncomfortably tight.

The woman cocks her head. She thinks that’s interesting. “Who were you trained by?”

 _No no no no._ He doesn’t want her to ask that question. He bites his lips tightly to keep himself from answering. He doesn’t want to answer.

He hates the way the truth serum makes him feel. Like Hydra is opening him up and prodding at his heart with needles and knives, tearing him open for everyone to see. Nothing is sacred.

“Barnes,” she says. Bucky looks at her. “Do you know what this button does?” Bucky shakes his head. “A press of this button and you get your first taste of electroshock therapy. The voltage increases each time you don’t give me an answer I want. Got it?”

Bucky bites his lip so hard that he can taste blood. He finally releases it and says, “Steve Rogers.”

She stares hard at him. “Steven Grant Rogers trained you?”

Bucky swallows and says, quietly, “Yes.”

She stares at him for a second more and then leans into the comm that’s on her shoulder. “Rumlow, I’m gonna need you to send Pierce down.”

Bucky starts to tremble in his seat.

One of the men outside the window moves away from his spot and makes his way down the hallway. A few moments later, he returns with another man in tow. Bucky stares in horror as he sees Alexander Pierce walk into view.

The woman opens the door, standing in the threshold while Rumlow and Pierce argue.

“Delay the project,” Pierce says definitively. “We’ll get intel on Rogers and then we’ll go through with it in a couple days.”

Rumlow looks outraged. “Sir,” he says. “It’s in our best interest to do this immediately. There’s no doubt that SHIELD will be on our trail.”

“SHIELD doesn’t know anything,” Pierce says. “For all they know, Barnes is bait.”

Bucky’s heart pounds angrily against his ribs. If he’s not being used for bait, then what is he being used for?

They talk for a while longer, but Pierce gets his way in the end. Pierce walks in with the woman at the end of their conversation. He stands off to the side while the woman asks more questions about Steve.

“What’s your relationship to Steven Grant Rogers?” she asks.

Bucky thinks on his answer before saying, “He’s my witch.” It’s not a lie.

She raises an eyebrow. “That’s all?” she asks.

Bucky clenches his hand on the table and grits his teeth together. Just because he’s forced to tell the truth doesn’t mean that he has to cooperate.

She sighs, as if bored and raises the remote before his eyes so he has a clear view of her pressing the red button at its center.

Bucky feels his muscles contract as a rush of electricity spreads through him. It hurts; it’s the strangest feeling he’s ever experienced. His body tingles like pins and needles and his muscles

“He’s my friend! He’s my friend, my witch, my—my _mentor_.”

“Were the two of you lovers?”

 _What kind of shit question is that?_ he wants to say. But what he does say is, “We were… dating.”

There are more questions, probing into his life with Steve. How they met, when they became friends. Pierce looks delighted to find out that Steve and Bucky are Bonded.

Soon, the woman leaves the room, and Bucky is left with Pierce. He sits down at the table, the picture of leisure as he reclines in the chair and fixes his cufflinks before brushing off the front of his suit.

“Do you have any questions?” Pierce asks, tone perfectly friendly.

Bucky stares at him. “Why do you care?” he asks. He has a file in his arms, one that he taps against the table to straighten out.

Pierce tilts his head. “Mr. Barnes, I’m offering your only chance to get all the questions you want answered. You must have a few things on your mind. You’ve been here for weeks now.”

He has a million questions, really. _Who the fuck are you? Why are you doing this? What the fuck kind of man do you think you are? How dare you fucking talk to me after you came to my father’s funeral for no other reason than PR—_

His breath is coming a lot faster. “It isn’t a coincidence, is it?” he says slowly. “That the Strike logo and the Hydra logo look so similar.”

Pierce chuckles and shakes his head. “It isn’t a coincidence, no. Strike belongs wholly to Hydra. But Hydra isn’t just a company, and it isn’t just a group of secret operatives, and it’s certainly not just a creature from Greek mythology. Hydra is an idea. A cause. One that has existed for many years. All these people that you see, they believe in Hydra. They’re part of a movement that we’re finally putting in action. Strike is a front for us. It helps us reach people easily. It’s one of our many subsects.”

Bucky starts breathing faster. “Why am I here?” he manages.

Pierce smiles. “Your bloodline is pure. Mr. Barnes, your father unwittingly had the cleanest and purest familiar background of any man I’ve ever met. You know that this makes you much stronger, much more capable with your magic. It’s probably the reason you can handle your potions and spells so well. We’re hoping that you’ll agree to be part of a program for young familiars like yourself.”

Pierce pushes the file that he’s been holding across the table. Bucky picks it up, reading the front: _WOLF SPIDER PROGRAM._

Bucky grits his teeth. “I thought you hated familiars.” Based on his politics, he might as well. His policies are discriminatory, his ideals outdated. It’s the main reason he and Bucky’s father never got along.

The man shakes his head, a little laugh bursting from his lips. The sound is like acid dripping in Bucky’s ears. “Mr. Barnes,” Pierce says, “you don’t understand. I don’t hate familiars. I don’t hate witches. I want them to have the same rights as us humans do. Don’t you understand what life would be like if I became president? No more curfews in the South. No more discrimination. You would finally have equal standing ground, wherever you travelled in the country.”

Bucky opens the file and reads. It calls for potential male familiar candidates to be trained in combat and espionage. There are lists of candidates. Bucky is near the top of the list. His hands start to shake. They’ve been following him all this time. Looking for him. They weren’t trying to look for Steve, they were looking for Bucky, trying to find a moment to pounce on him. They must have gotten info from Wanda. They must have tailed him to his house and found his address but realized they couldn’t get in until the cloaking charm wore off.

They’ve been biding their time for so long. Waiting to pounce.

Bucky grits his teeth, his hands shaking in their handcuffs. “You’re a fucking liar,” he growls. “You’re not an advocate for cunning-folk. You’re a businessman. You don’t think we’re people, we’re just _useful parts_ of your big machine. You aren’t giving us rights because you’re a good person, you’re doing it because you want familiars and witches on your side to make your _case_ better. And then they’ll all be jumping up and down to serve you while you reap the benefits of beings that can wield magic being under your command.”

The light vanishes from Pierce’s eyes the second the words are out of his mouth.

He presses the button on the table, and Bucky seizes as electricity courses through him.

“You have a lot to say for someone who is completely at the mercy of every single person in this building. How long have you been here? Two weeks?”

Bucky swallows and wrenches his head up.

“Two weeks,” Pierce says. He sneers. “Two weeks and not one person has come looking for you. Must be a shame, to be so unwanted.”

Bucky sneers. “Fuck you,” he spits. “And fuck your Wolf Spider program. I’ll fucking kill myself before I ever work for you.”

Pierce tilts his head and smiles. “You’re lying.”

“Like fuck I am,” Bucky shoots back.

“You wouldn’t kill yourself. Not when Steve Rogers could get hurt in the ordeal.”

Bucky freezes. Pierce has caught him on his bluff.

The man laughs coldly. “I have a deal to make with you. You want captain Rogers unharmed, yes?”

Bucky’s fucking shaking. “You couldn’t hurt him anyway,” he murmurs.

Pierce shakes his head. “Rogers is strong, and he is capable of doing serious damage. But he’s not invincible. You must know that.”

He does know that. How many times did Steve come home beaten and bloody?

Pierce continues, “Break your Bond with Steve Rogers and we won’t kill you.”

Bucky’s heart drops, but he says, “I just told you that I don’t want to hurt Steve, and now you’re telling me to break my Bond with him. Because that _won’t_ hurt Steve?”

“True,” Pierce says, “but what will hurt more—you dying and the Bond breaking that way, or you breaking the Bond and continuing to live?”

Bucky grits his teeth. “Fuck you. And fuck your deal.”

Pierce presses the button.

Electricity courses through Bucky’s body, making his muscles stiffen. He feels his heart skip a beat as Pierce prolongs the current.

And suddenly the current stops, and Bucky has movement of his own muscles. He drops to the table like a bag of wet cement. He growls in frustration and pain.

“Only two more levels, Mr. Barnes,” Pierce says softly. “Two more levels before the electricity is enough to stop your heart. We’ve been careful, but now I don’t give a damn. Make the deal.”

“Fuck you,” Bucky says through gritted teeth, wrenching his head from the table..

“Level six,” Pierce commands. He almost blacks out from the current. He feels his heart skip again. When Bucky gets done shaking and spasming, Pierce grabs his chin and forces him to look up at him. Bucky cries out in pain; his muscles are sore from contracting so much to the electricity.

“One more level,” Pierce growls at him. “One more level, Mr. Barnes. Then we stop your heart. Captain Rogers will feel your Bond snapping as you die. I wonder if he can feel it weakening right now.”

 _Captain_ is the word that sticks in his mind. Captain Steve Rogers. He had no idea…

Bucky scoffs weakly.

“Break your Bond with Captain Rogers,” Pierce says in a coaxing, slimy tone. “Or we stop your heart and break it anyway.”

Bucky breathes harshly against the table. His hand twitches.

He’s trapped.

“Okay. Okay,” Bucky whispers. “I’ll break it.”


	19. Electricity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short chapter. Again, warnings for bad things.

Breaking True Bonds is risky business, especially since Bucky has to do it on his own. He isn’t experienced with casting spells. He doesn’t know how to do this.

They give him a printout of what the sigil should look like. It’s very similar to the first, but not mirrored. It’s one vector on its own.

Bucky swallows when he sees this. Maybe he should just botch the spell and leave it. Have Hydra do what they may to him. He doesn’t want this.

The supplies are the same. Chalk, ceremonial knife, silk rope. He draws the sigil. He ties one end of the rope above his elbow and makes an infinity knot (a difficult task with just one hand). He slices his hand, grasps the rope. But this time, he has to burn the other end of the rope. If true, strong intent is in the spell, the rope would burn in a second and the spell would be over.

The process _should_ be quick, but since Bucky’s “intent” isn’t in the spell, it takes longer. He has to stand and watch the rope burn for three minutes before he feels the magic let up inside of his skin. The spell is done.

And then the pain hits him. Suddenly, intensely, as his heart rips into two separate pieces.

He collapses on the floor. He’s in so much fucking pain—his soul was only halved, but it feels like he’s completely empty. There’s nothing inside him, nothing, _nothing—_

One of the Hydra attendants grab his arm and pull him upwards. Bucky goes reluctantly, swaying on his feet. The attendant calls the other one over and says, “Bring him a gurney. We need to treat him immediately.”

Bucky is filled with relief. _Treatment._ They’re going to help him, thank Christ. In a few seconds, a team of doctors is rolling in with a gurney. They force Bucky down on it and start to wheel him out of the room.

He feels spacey. This kind of pain is astronomical. He’s drifting in and out of full consciousness. He catches a few words that the nurse above him says.

“You’re going into shock,” she tells him. “We need to treat you for pain, and possibly give you a sedative.”

Bucky nods, believing them, before realizing that there’s no treatment for pain that is wholly spiritual.

Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.

He starts to sit up on the gurney. “No,” he says, “I don’t need to be treated, I think—”

A doctor in a white coat pushes him down, and Bucky is too weak to fight it. A moment later, they’re pushing his gurney though double doors and they’re nothing he can do to fight them when they roll him into a large hospital room. There’s a viewing deck above them and Bucky gets a sick feeling in his stomach.

He’s helpless as they hook him to a machine, strap down his arms and buckle a strip of leather over his neck. Too weak to fight, he can only watch as several doctors bustle around him. Pierce strolls in a few minutes later as a short, portly doctor takes to his bedside. There are two cold nodes pressing into his temples.

“What is your name?” he asks in a thick accent.

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat. “James Barnes,” he rasps. “What are you—what are you gonna—”

“Bite down on this, kid,” another agent says. Tall with short-cropped hair, black shirt, large muscles.

Bucky opens his mouth and takes the mouth guard in. His heart rate is skyrocketing.

“Start the machine,” the doctor orders.

Electricity makes him convulse. Then he passes out.

+++

Bucky wakes up and he feels like he’s been hit by a fucking freight train. The doctor holds out his hand and Bucky spits out the mouth guard.

“What’s your name?” the doctor asks him.

He stares. “James,” he answers, after a moment’s thought. “James Barnes.”

The doctor shakes his head and looks to the attendant. “Again.”

They shove the mouth guard in his mouth. Then darkness.

+++

He wakes up without the mouth guard in his mouth. He registers the “What…” and “Your name?” but he can’t answer. He groans a little.

Someone slaps his face and he jerks.

“What is your name?”

He thinks for a long moment. “Barnes?” he asks. Like he’s not sure. “I—”

Someone works his jaw open and they stuff a mouth guard in. Darkness.

+++

He hears the words from far away.  “What’s your name?” the man in the white coat asks him.

He’s silent.

“Your name?”

He’s silent again. He honestly doesn’t have an answer.

The doctor nods. “Good.”

 

**END OF PART ONE**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty kids, thank you so much for sticking around for the ride! The next story should be up pretty soon, like a week or so. I'm still in the planning stages, but I know where I'm going in general for the next story and the one after that. 
> 
> Whoever can guess the name of the next work gets my love and affection. ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Necessary Elements - Salt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10338924) by [abbabccd05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbabccd05/pseuds/abbabccd05)




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